January 2012
21 posts
1 tag
the right to be forgotten
‘Facebook has cut a deal with political website Politico that allows the independent site machine-access to Facebook users’ messages, both public and private, when a Republican Presidential candidate is mentioned by name. The data is being collected and analyzed for sentiment by Facebook’s data team, then delivered to Politico to serve as the basis of data-driven political...
1 tag
it's a poor sort of memory that only works...
‘The cabinet sees no reason to apologise for the Dutch government’s attitude to Jews during World War II, prime minister Mark Rutte said on Thursday in answer to questions from the anti-Islam party PVV.
The PVV said last week the current government should apologise for the way the regime in exile in London ignored the deportation of Jews during the war. Wilders was reacting to a...
1 tag
you gave me a life I never chose
‘One of the most striking examples of a darknet comes from Mexico where it was recently discovered that the the Zetas drug cartel has set up several private cell phone and radio repeater systems in the state of Veracruz as well as along 500 miles of the Texas-Mexico border. Some portions of this system were in remote areas and were powered by solar cells, and used commercially...
1 tag
‘Women, children and gays’ should watch Ajax-AZ cup tie replay
Amsterdam football club Ajax has asked the football association KNVB if it is prepared to allow women and children to see the replay of the cup tie between Ajax and AZ.
The match is being played again after the first tie was abandoned when an Ajax fan tried to attack AZ’s keeper. Ajax was leading 1-0 at the...
up, up and away
During the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin back in August - an annual hacker conference sponsored by the German Chaos Computer Club - a team of German hackers revealed plans to launch their own communication satellites into space in order to create a separate, “uncensorable” network called the Hackerspace Global Grid (HGG).
- Hackers getting into the low-cost satellite...
yes is more
‘This time around, Apple has been the leader in the push to control users. They say they’re protecting users, and to some extent that is true. I can download software onto my iPad feeling fairly sure that it’s not going to harm the computer. I wouldn’t mind what Apple was doing if that’s all they did, keep the nasty bits off my computer. But of course,...
December 2011
16 posts
1 tag
welcome to a new kind of tension
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri on what to expect in 2012. Or at least what they are hoping for 2012.
I smile, of course, and go on drinking tea.
‘The United States government is increasingly concerned about the Twitter account of the Shabab militant group of Somalia, with American officials saying Monday that they were “looking closely” at the militants’ use of Twitter and the possible measures to take in response.
Over the past two weeks, the Shabab, brutal Islamists known for chopping off hands and starving the famine-stricken...
1 tag
How can theater be "inauthentic"?
A few hours after television producers set up a replica of Occupy Wall Street for the filming of a new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the real Occupy Wall Street announced plans to occupy the fake one.
As of about 1:00 a.m., the police had begun to push protesters out of the park and dismantle the set. “NYPD does not respect Law and Order,” the crowd chanted...
1 tag
from amsterdam with love
‘Public broadcaster Nos angered thousands of families and children on Monday evening by cancelling the traditional Sinterklaas broadcast of kids television show Sesame Street in favour of former finance minister Wouter Bos answering questions on the 2008 financial crisis.
The show was dropped because of the ‘national importance’ of Bos’s appearance before the parliamentary commission...
CPS: You have argued, speaking of neoliberalism, you have argued that neoliberalism does not simply promote economic policies but to quote you “disseminates market values into every sphere of human activity.” What distinguishes your perspective here from the despair found in someone like Adorno? What would it require to translate the despair that many people experience in very personal and...
1 tag
p-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
‘The editor-in-chief of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, in his 2011 Orwell lecture earlier this month, revealed that he had a conversation with a “senior Google figure” who was musing about the potential of Google face recognition software, “whose effects are so far reaching the company can’t quite yet decide what to do with it”.
Rusbridger said the Google exec...
what's in a name
‘A U.S. District Court judge in Portland has drawn a line in the sand between “journalist” and “blogger.” And for Crystal Cox, a woman on the latter end of that comparison, the distinction has cost her $2.5 million.
Cox runs several law-centric blogs and was sued by investment firm Obsidian Finance Group in January for defamation, to the tune of $10 million, for...
PayPal vs. Regretsy
PAYPAL: Only a nonprofit can use the Donate button. ME: That’s false. It says right in the PDF of instructions for the Donate button that it can be used for “worthy causes.” PAYPAL: I haven’t seen that PDF. And what you’re doing is not a worthy cause, it’s charity. ME: What’s the difference? PAYPAL: You can use the donate button to raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people.
Cats 1 - Kids...
The Xinjiang Procedure
“Nineteen years later, in a secure European location, the doctor laid out the puzzle. He asked that I keep his identity a secret. Chinese medical authorities admit that the lion’s share of transplant organs originate with executions, but no mainland Chinese doctors, even in exile, will normally speak of performing such surgery. To do so would remind international medical authorities of...
