Your Rights Online, Copyfight; Broadband; Netflix; Facebook, Instragram; Apple, Apps; Tech Death; Crapware

Your Rights Online

• Obama likely to issue executive order on cybersecurity as early as January
• Congress Defeats E-Mail Privacy Legislation — Again
• Behind closed doors at the UN’s attempted "takeover of the Internet"--"Conflicting visions for the future of the Internet collide in Dubai."
• Will the internet end up controlled by big business and politicians?--"Its birth heralded a new age of intellectual freedom. Now the internet is under siege."
• What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web?--"The digital pioneer and visionary behind virtual reality has turned against the very culture he helped create."

Copyfight

• Secrecy the Standard as Canada Enters Trans Pacific Partnership Talks
• Why the entertainment industry's release strategy creates piracy--"If companies refuse to release films or TV shows in US and UK at same time, they only have themselves to blame for piracy."
• IP Diplomat Sob Story: It's Hard To Push The US Agenda When The World Listens To Reason
• Australia: ISP Walks Out of Piracy Talks: "We're Not The Internet Police"
• Intellectual property crime unit to be set up by City police
• Canadian ISP Defends Decision Not To Oppose BitTorrent Copyright Trolls
• Pirate Bay Censorship Backfires as New Proxies Bloom
• Google Starts Reporting False DMCA Takedown Requests
• Google search now gets 2.5 million copyright removal requests a week, up from 250,000 in May
• Italy finally acquits Google execs convicted over user-uploaded video--"Decision that set a dangerous precedent for Internet freedom is overturned."

Broadband

• It’s Time to Fix the Pitifully Slow, Expensive Internet Access in the U.S.--Seattle's going gigabit.
• Report: data caps just a "cash cow" for Internet providers--"Caps have remained steady even as costs of delivering data have plunged."
• Google Fiber announces five more "fiberhoods" for KC--Dear Google, come forth and deliver us from evil.
• Time Warner Cable: Demand Not There for Google Fiber: Insists That if People Want 1 Gbps, They'll Provide it.-When or do they even have the infrastructure for it?
• UK village gets government-funded super-fast broadband

Netflix

• House approves Netflix-backed changes to video privacy law
• Disney anoints Netflix as its exclusive distributor starting in 2016
• Netflix settles with deaf-rights group, agrees to caption all videos by 2014
• Netflix Being Investigated By The SEC For CEO Reed Hastings' Public Facebook Posts
• Netflix Margins Are Doomed

Facebook

• Four years later, Facebook votes disappear for good
• Why are Dead People 'liking' stuff on Facebook?
• Facebook’s Poke App Is a Snapchat Clone Built in Just 12 Days
• German privacy regulator orders Facebook to end its real name policy
• Facebook trials charging $1 to send certain messages

Instragram

• Instagram Users Appalled To Learn That Instagram Is a Business
• Instagram says it now has the right to sell your photos
• No, Instagram can't sell your photos — what the new terms of service really mean
• How to download your Instagram photos and delete your account
• Instagram co-founder: "It is not our intention to sell your photos"

Apple

• Upgrading RAM on new iMac practically impossible--That's for the 21.5" one. The 27.5" iMac's RAM can be boosted to 32GB, but best to buy from a third-party like Crucial.com where the difference is $40 for 16GB versus Apple's $200.
• Key Apple patent used against Samsung under fire
• Microsoft balks at Apple's 30% fee, leaving SkyDrive and apps that integrate with it in the lurch on iOS--"Microsoft has persisted in trying to work out a compromise with Apple, but has thus far failed to come to an agreement. The company offered to remove all subscription options from its application, leaving it a non-revenue generating experience on iOS. The offer was rebuffed."
• Apple lifts block on combo 30-pin+Lightning charging accessories--"The Kickstarter campaign that was "shut down" now has a green light."
• The Onion: New iPhone Geared Towards College-Aged Girls Comes With Pre-Shattered Screen

Apps

• Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers
• Most app developers make less than $500 a month
• As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living NYT
• Going For "Pretty First" Is Wrong: A Designer’s Take On App Development
• Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones NYT

Tech Death

• The mighty downfall of Japan's tech giants--"Credit ratings for Sony and Panasonic were recently downgraded to 'junk' status, showing how far the firms have fallen."
• RIM app market analysis: still behind, iOS, Android, Windows Phone--"It's stil scrambling to catch yesterday's hottest mobile app."
• CNET Top 5: Tech flops

Crapware

• Here's all the crapware that comes with new Windows 8 PCs
• Windows 8's crapware-induced premature death – and it’s all our fault
• Blowing away bloatware: a guide to reinstalling Windows on a new PC

Reckoning, Libor; Just Business; Monsanto, Big Food; Big Pharma; Diamonds; Consumer Protection; Yelp; Trumped

Reckoning

• Banks See Biggest Returns Since '03 as Employees Suffer
• Citigroup cuts 11,000 staff worldwide
• Deutsche Bank offices raided amid tax evasion inquiry--"German authorities investigate 25 Deutsche Bank staff, including co-chief executive Jürgen Fitschen, on suspicion of tax scam."
• Queen questions financial crisis
• EU strikes deal for eurozone banks watchdog

Libor

• Leniency Denied, UBS Unit Admits Guilt in Rate Case--Fined to the tune of over $1 billion.
• UBS and LIBOR: Horribly rotten, comically stupid
• Geithner Was Told of Libor Fears in 2008

Just Business

• Corporate Wrongdoers Must Be Held Personally Responsible for Their Crimes
• Google boss Eric Schmidt: I'm proud of our tax avoidance scheme...it's called capitalism
• Federal Judge Allows Corporation To File Secret Lawsuit--Holy corporatocracy, Batman.

Monsanto

• DOJ Mysteriously Quits Monsanto Antitrust Investigation
• Dirty white gold--"Monsanto's claim that it's a 'sustainable agriculture company' doesn't hold water."
• Will Monsanto destroy Mexico's corn?--"Introducing GE corn to Mexico would sound the death knell for the country's precious ecology, argues author."

Big Food

• What's a Food Industry to Do?
  
• Big Food And The Big, Silent Salt Experiment
• Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms

Big Pharma

• Supreme Court to hear "pay-for-delay" drug case--"The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether brand-name drug companies may pay money to generic drug rivals to keep their lower-priced products off the market, a practice estimated to cost consumers and the government billions of dollars each year."
• How Big Pharma Prevents The Poor From Accessing Life-Saving Medicines
  
• Big Pharma Company Mocked Patients Who Got "Jawbone Death" from Drug: "Ma Toot Hurts So Bad"

Diamonds

• Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?
• Russia reveals shiny state secret: It's awash in diamonds--"'Trillions of carats' lie below a 35-million-year-old, 62-mile-diameter asteroid crater in eastern Siberia known as Popigai Astroblem. The Russians have known about the site since the 1970s."
• Astronomers discover planet made of diamond

Consumer Protection

• Victory For Man Who Took Cold Caller To Court
• China's Toxic Milk Whistleblower Murdered
• Blast from the Past: The Everyman Who Exposed Tainted Toothpaste NYT

Yelp

• Virginia woman sued for $750,000 over her 1-star Yelp! review--She's getting help from the ACLU.
• Yelp Outs Companies That Pay for Positive Reviews
• Peregrine Espresso Informs Yelp That No, It Isn't Closed--Corporate sabotage?

Trumped

• Scottish farmer who stood up to Donald Trump given Scotsman of the Year award
• Donald Trump's Scottish love affair on the rocks after whisky award slight--"Furious Trump bans all whiskies by distiller that sponsored Top Scot award given to his obstinate neighbour."
• MSPs dismiss Donald Trump's wind farms warning

English, Language, Speaking in Tongues, Dead, Typography

English

• Learn English online: How the internet is changing language
• Britishisms and the Britishisation of American English
• Jerry Seinfeld (Really!) Riffs About ... Something NYT
• "Like... you know."
• Oxford American Dictionary names "GIF" word of the year Salon

Language

• Where does language come from? Salon
• Speech 101 Prank
• The 25 Funniest AutoCorrects Of 2012

Speaking in Tongues

• Music Video: ÆØÅ (Size Matters)
• Trim Poster
• Amazing: Microsoft turns spoken English into spoken Mandarin – in the same voice
• Better than English--"We post words and phrases that don't have direct English translations."
• Duolingo Intro

Dead

• New York, a graveyard for languages
• Most European Languages Face 'Digital Extinction', Say University Of Manchester Researchers
• Breakthrough in world's oldest undeciphered writing
• Cromarty fisherfolk dialect's last native speaker dies
• Blast from the Past: Last 2 Speakers Of Dying Language Won't Speak To Each Other

Typography

• K is for King, Q is for Queen
• The power of the letter "o" Salon
• Word as Image
• "The Manual of Linotype Typography" is Now Online
• Opinion: Why Won't Helvetica Go Away?

2012 Phenomenon; Educamation; Higher Learning, Lower Earning; International; Kids These Days; Schooled; Bullying

2012 Phenomenon: It's the end of the world as we know it

• 'Mayan day of apocalypse' arrives
• No apocalypse is coming — Another Maya calendar has been found
• C&H: Mayan Calendar

Educamation

• How Charter Schools Fleece Taxpayers
• Jindal voucher overhaul unconstitutionally diverts public funds to private schools, judge rules--Another part of his plan got shot down.
• Downward mobility haunts US education
• The Decline of the 'Great Equalizer'--"Massachusetts, home to America's best schools and best-educated workforce, has seen income inequality soar. Why? The poor are losing an academic arms race with the rich."
• Why You Can Kiss Public Education (and the Middle Class) Goodbye
• Profiting From a Child's Illiteracy--Parents deliberately debilatating their kids for cash. NYT
• US students far from first in math, science--First comment already won the thread: "US ranked 17th in math and science. Hey at least we're still in the top 10."

Higher Learning, Lower Earning

• Growth In College Tuition Vs. Growth In Earnings For College Graduates
• From Master Plan to No Plan: The Slow Death of Public Higher Education
• The Troubling Dean-to-Professor Ratio--"Why is it that we can't find any money for more faculty, but there seems to be an almost unlimited budget for administrators?"
• Higher education: Not what it used to be
• Saying No to College NYT

International

• Best Education In The World: Finland, South Korea Top Country Rankings, U.S. Rated Average--They're schilp-a-schlap-a vay.
• Why the Fate of Humanity Rests on a Chinese Middle-Schooler's Test Scores--Did you know failing your mid-terms can lead to an extinction-level event?
• Brazil education standards contribute to learning crisis--"Brazil's dismal education standards are too low for the world's No. 6 economy and threaten to stunt the nation's development."

Kids These Days

• Psychopathy's Double Edge--"Many people see the current group of college students, sometimes called 'Generation Me' as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident, and individualistic in recent history."
• 'I sneak boys in at 3am and disrespect my parents': Girl, 15, forced to stand by side of the road with humiliating sign--Now that's parenting.
• Jake Evans, 17, tells 911 he shot and killed mother, sister — charged with murder--"I am pretty, I guess, evil ... whatever." And that's not.

Schooled

• French teacher suspended over 'suicide assignment'
• Teacher's Reward Program Charges Second-Graders for Bathroom Breaks
• Austin Kinder Teacher to Afterschool Class: "You Kids Don't Believe in Santa, Do You?"
• Vancouver Island teacher suspended for showing Grade 4 students Christmas video featuring drag queens
• Teacher says student spiked her coffee with butt-enhancing pills

Bullying

• After 42 years, North Vancouver school bullying victim gets closure
• Pupils hiding talents from bullies, survey suggests
• High school superheroes help younger schoolmates stand against bullying

HSBC: Drug Money Launderer, 420, Medical Marijuana, Legalization and Decriminalization, War on Drugs, Law and Disorder, Mexico

HSBC: Drug Money Launderer

• HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
• HSBC blasted for 'stunning failures over oversight'
• HSBC, Too Big to Indict? NYT
• Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke
• Matt Taibbi: You Can Go to Prison for Pot, While Big Banks Get Away With Laundering Drug Cartel Cash --It's a horrible injustice.

420

• The end of the war on marijuana
• How the War on Drugs Caused the Fake Pot Problem
• The Truce On Drugs--"What happens now that the war has failed?"
• D.A.R.E., America's Most Famous Anti-Drug Program, Will No Longer Talk to Children About Marijuana
• New Data Cast Further Doubt on Drug Czar's Theory That Marijuana Reform Makes Kids Smoke Pot
• Fox News busted reporting drivers on Cannabis
• Video: Breaking The Taboo--Come for the message. Stay for Morgan Freeman's voiceover.

Medical Marijuana

• 25,900 People Want Obama to Pardon a Medical Marijuana Provider Facing Life in Prison. Will He?
• If Oakland’s Medical Pot Is Illegal, Why Are the Feds Trying to Patent It As Medicine?
• San Francisco: Medical Marijuana Users Can Get Booted From Public Housing at Any Time
• Medical marijuana law sponsors surprised Christie wants to impose sales tax on it
• Ireland: Medicinal cannabis available here in the next year

Legalization and Decriminalization

• Obama's Pot Problem--"Now that states have started legalizing recreational marijuana, will the president continue the government’s war on weed?"
• Obama Won't Go After State Marijuana Legalization: 'We Have Bigger Fish To Fry'
• 3 Reasons Not to Take Obama's Pot Prosecution Comments Too Seriously
• Administration Weighs Legal Action Against States That Legalized Marijuana Use NYT
• Washington Post: Marijuana's foot in the door--"For now, the federal government does not need to stage an aggressive intervention, one way or the other. It can wait, watch and enforce the most worrisome violations as they occur."
• Washington state lights up as smoking marijuana becomes legal
• Indiana State Police chief advises lawmakers to legalize and tax pot
• Marijuana: A Winning GOP Issue?
• Speaker won't stop Vermont House pot debate--"Shap Smith says he's open to a dialogue on marijuana decriminalization, despite his own misgivings about the idea."
• Why Legalizing Pot Won't Curb the Drug War--"Advocates may think their recent initiatives have set Mexican traffickers back, but the cartels have already moved on."

War on Drugs

• Clinton: Drug war 'hasn't worked'
• Quentin Tarantino Says Drug War, Justice System Are Modern-Day Slavery
• Branson: War on drugs a trillion-dollar failure
• Video: Is The War on Drugs "All About the Money"?
• The War on Drugs is a war on human nature--"America's been fighting this battle for decades. It can't be won, and it's costing us upwards of $20 billion a year." Salon
• Government will not change drugs policy despite critical report--"The Government tonight ruled out any shift in drugs policy despite a damning report by an influential group of MPs which said Britain was failing to tackle drug barons or the multi-billion pound global profits of their illegal trade."
• Nick Clegg calls for royal commission on drugs reform--Says there's a 'conspiracy of silence.'

Law and Disorder

• Police In Colombia Seize 1.5 Tons Of Cocaine In A Container That Was To Be Shipped To The US
• Brazil: Dozens of police officers arrested, accused of taking bribes--From drug traffickers.
• Spain arrests woman with cocaine filled breast implants
• Pakistan: 13 die after drinking cough syrup--"The victims were all drug addicts who apparently drank the cough syrup in an attempt to get high...."
• Man loses drug money, asks Tucson police for help

Mexico

• More than 25,000 people disappear in six years--"Unpublished official figures show cost of chaos and violence enveloping country in fight against drug gangs."
• 'Please spare my little girl': How Mexico's fearless female mayor sacrificed herself to save her daughter's life as she was abducted by drug gang, tortured and executed
• Mexico beauty queen had gun in her hands, was used as a human shield

Gun Control, Educamation; War on Terror, Civil Liberties, Wikileaks, TSA: Theater Security of America; School-to-Prison, Prison Privatization, Jail Tales

Gun Control

• Obama Supports New Bid To Ban Assault Weapons, Close Gun Show 'Loophole'
• Case studies for Sandy Hook? Australia, Scotland and Finland changed gun laws after mass shootings
• Michigan's Snyder Vetoes Bill Allowing Concealed Guns In Schools
• All 31 Pro-Gun Senators Refused Invitations To Appear On 'Meet The Press'
• Gun Control Momentum Is Real, Just Don’t Ask The House
• Report: Fox News producers told not to address gun control
• NRA's Facebook page shuttered, Twitter activity halted--But they haven't gone completely dark.

Educamation

• Sixth Grader Brings Gun to School for Protection, Does Not Act Totally Responsibly
• Oklahoma Will Consider Law Allowing Teachers To Bring Guns To School
• Umbrella mistaken for gun at Upper Dublin High School

War on Terror

• Zakaria: End the war on terror and save billions
• US Muslims to GOP: If You're Trying to Lose Our Votes, You're Doing a Good Job
• Military Judge Orders Guantánamo Prisoners not to Talk in Court about being Tortured
• U.S.: dismiss lawsuit over Americans killed by drones--" The administration also threatened to invoke the State Secrets..."
• Rendition, Zero Dark Thirty and the brutal reality of Britain's secret services--"Kathryn Bigelow's film about the killing of Osama bin Laden does not touch the reality of what occurred in the 'war on terror'"

Civil Liberties

• CIA 'tortured and sodomised' terror suspect, human rights court rules--"Landmark European court of human rights judgment says CIA tortured wrongly detained German citizen."
• State Secrets Defense Corners Judge in 'Catch-22' Predicament
• Judge OKs Warrantless Cell-Site Data in Landmark Privacy Case

Wikileaks

• Pirate Party Presses Charges Against Banks For WikiLeaks Blockade
• Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate under WikiLeaks party
• Bradley Manning's long quest for justice--"History will judge harshly the US military's mistreatment of the alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower...."

TSA: Theater Security of America

• TSA Detains "Explosive Laced" Girl In Wheelchair--And they come out with a so-called apology.
• TSA to Commission Independent Study of X-Ray Body Scanners
• TSA revising security screening at some airports

School-to-Prison

• Private Prison Company Used in Drug Raids at Public High School
• The Shocking Details of a Mississippi School-to-Prison Pipeline
• Groundbreaking Senate Hearing Shines a Light on the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Prison Privatization

• One way to trim the budget: Prison reform.
• Prison Price Gouging Costs Us All In The End
• Stupid and Unjust: The Highway Robbery of Prison Phone Rates
• Private Prison Company Exec Thomas Weirdsma: Lying To Federal Agencies 'Happens All The Time'
• Prison labor booms in US as low-cost inmates bring billions

Jail Tales

• For Lesser Crimes, Rethinking Life Behind Bars--"Many scholars say mandatory sentencing policies lock up nonviolent, low-level offenders for too long and are no longer a cost-effective way to reduce crime in the United States." NYT
• 31 percent of correctional officers have PTSD Salon
• Jailers worry about inmates using dental floss as a weapon

Fiscal Cliff, Defense Cuts, Republicans, Elections, Racism, Right-to-Work, Walmart

Fiscal Cliff

• Obama Makes Boehner A New Offer
• Krugman: That Terrible Trillion--Republicans "use the deficit to argue that we can't afford to maintain programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid." NYT
• Taxing the rich: why $250,000 became the benchmark

Defense Cuts

• Right, left call for defense cuts
• Generals: Get real and cut Pentagon spending
• The Hidden Costs of Empire--"The Pentagon's budgetary accounting conceals $170 billion in spending."
• Defense Bill Likely to Mention East Coast Missile Site
• The Culture of War Must be Ended by Cutting Military Spending
• How to cut $100B from the defense budget
• 7 Shocking Ways the Military Wastes Our Money

Republicans

• We Have To End Republican Nihilism
• Krugman: The G.O.P.’s Existential Crisis--"This is worth repeating: We'e not having a debt crisis. What we're having is a political crisis." NYT
• How Republicans Are Duping Members of Their Own Party--"GOP intransigence reflects the views of rank-and-file Republicans, right? Wrong. Michael Tomasky on the poll that exposes a party devoted to ignoring the voice of its own voters."
• House Republicans Have Nothing To Lose But Primaries
• Why Republican Efforts to Block Obama Won't Work This Time

Elections

• The GOP's Effort to Siphon Votes Away From Blue States
• How the Republican Party is planning to marginalize urban voters in the next election
• Yet More Republican Attempts to Game the System
• Angry Over Gay Mayor's Election, Florida GOP Leader Wants To Stop College Kids From Voting
• U.S. should automatically register voters: attorney general--Good luck getting that through Congress while the Repulicans keep obstructing.

Racism

• Va. college punishes 4 in racial protest over Obama win
• North Alabama player tweets racist Obama comment after speech pre-empted NFL game, now gone from team
• Sirota: Time to profile white men? Salon

Right-to-Work

• Michigan Republicans Re-Pass Anti-Union Law That Voters Repealed Just Six Weeks Ago
• The misleading framing of 'right-to-work'
• Josh Eidelson: Right-to-Work Laws Are Good for Corporations, Not Workers
• Right to Work Laws and Why Labor Unions Are in Crisis
• Video: What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us?

Walmart

• Walmart Bails On Obamacare-Sticks Taxpayers With Employee Healthcare Costs
• Walmart Tells Workers Who Ask About Unions That Benefits And Vacation 'Might Go Away'
• India MPs in parliament uproar over Walmart lobbying
• How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs to Get Its Way in Mexico NYT
• Global Day of Action Hits Walmart in 10 Countries

Your Rights Online, Free Speech, Surveillance, Privacy; Net History, Old Tech, Inventions, Predictions, Computers, Gadgets

Your Rights Online

• ITU has 'failed,' says ITU's former policy chief--They tried to be sneaky about the process.
• US and UK refuse to sign UN's communications treaty
• The U.N. Fought The Internet -- And The Internet Won; WCIT Summit In Dubai Ends

Free Speech

• Peers vote to remove law banning insulting language--"Peter Tatchell, David Davis, Rowan Atkinson and Keir Starmer are among those who have campaigned against the rule."
• India's Battle for Freedom in Cyberspace--"The arrest of two young women over Facebook comments has renewed a much needed debate over internet censorship."
• China: Cyber anti-corruption campaign proves free speech

Surveillance

• Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal
• Government seeks to shut down NSA wiretapping lawsuit--"Suit over domestic surveillance will reveal state secrets, say DOJ lawyers."
• Stop Congress from Reauthorizing the FISA Amendments Act, a Warrantless Spying Bill--Hope discussions aren't kept in the dark.
• UK: Draft Communications Data Bill to be redrafted - No 10
• Public Buses Across Country Quietly Adding Microphones to Record Passenger Conversations

Privacy

• Op-ed—A plea to Google: Protect our e-mail privacy
• FTC To Investigate Apps For Children Over Privacy Lapses
• Shamed by Mugshot Sites, Arrestees Try Novel Lawsuit

Net History

• Video: The BBS Documentary
• Internet Archive: 10,000,000,000,000,000 bytes archived!
• The disappearing web: Information decay is eating away our history
• Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong
• The State Of The Web 2012

Old Tech

• Return to Antikythera: Divers revisit wreck where ancient computer found
• US Air Force's 1950s supersonic flying saucer declassified
• Witch at Bletchley: 'World's oldest working digital computer'--Watch it boot.

Inventions

• Best Inventions of the Year 2012
  
• The 50 Worst Inventions--"From the zany to the dangerous to the just plain dumb, here is TIME's list (in no particular order) of some of the world's bright ideas that just didn't work out."
• Wi-fi, dual-flush loos and eight more Australian inventions
• Mine Kafon--"A short documentary portrait on a designer who has created a low cost solution to landmine clearance."
• How A Foot-Powered Washing Machine Could Change Millions Of Lives

Predictions

• 5 fearless tech predictions for 2013
• Popular Mechanices: 110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years
• 19th Century French Artists Predicted The World Of The Future In This Series Of Postcards

Computers

• ThinkPad turns 20: how IBM's 'black box' defined the laptop industry
• What happens when computers are cheaper than LEGO blocks?--Take a bite of some Raspberry Pi, the cheapest way to play Minecraft.
• Learn By Building Your Own Computer

Gadgets

• Long range WiFi antenna from Illy coffee can
• Brain-controlled helicopter takes mental concentration to new heights
• How to Use a [BUSTED] Cell Phone to Meet 5 Basic Survival Needs
• How To Rescue Wet Gadgets
• xkcd: Home Organization