- Amnesty unveils shock ‘waterboarding’ film – This video makes it pretty clear why waterboarding is torture and not just an “enhanced interrogation” technique as George Bush would have us believe. Very nasty. (Don’t watch over dinner.)
- DRM: The Gift that Keeps on Taking – “Now, people, aren’t you really glad you bought DRM’d music”
- Free your mind – How can a writer make money when distribution is free…
Category: Links
- London teen orders ‘cab, innit’ – Barely believable but very funny!
- Billy Bragg: Why should songwriters starve so others get rich? – “I never bought that Home Taping Is Killing Music shit in the 1980s that the record companies tried to lay on us. In fact I printed on the front of my fourth album that Capitalism is Killing Music. And that’s what’s happening now. The powerful start-ups a
- What Idiot Wrote These Ten Commandments? – “Where’s the stuff we can use? Where’s ‘No pushing’? Or ‘Bag your leaves so they don’t blow around in your neighbor’s yard?’ And don’t even get me started on right-of-way. Didn’t they have real problems back in Bible days?”
- The Cost of E-Voting – One of the many reasons that I am against e-voting machines: the cost. “The cost … increased 179 percent per voter on average.” All that money for a less reliable system. Bargain!
- Change we can believe in – I didn’t realise that we were in line for some new coins. They look surprisingly good, certainly much better than the new US notes. (Originally from daringfireball.net)
- Bali bombings: A sister’s search for justice – I’ve always said that it’s much easier to be against capital punishment when it’s just an abstract idea. Here the sister of one of the Bali bombing’s victims argues why she’s still against it.
- Spam blights e-mail 15 years on – The thing that I’ll never understand is that some people must read spam otherwise it wouldn’t be a profitable business. Why?! My domain received over 40000 spam messages last month, none of which I’ve read so please stop sending them!
- WordPress 2.5 – I just upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. I don’t think I’ve managed to break anything but please do let me know if you know differently.
- Adobe Photoshop Express Now Live – A neat, on-line mini-Photoshop is now available in beta at least. Clearly some way short even of Elements but it’s probably sophisticated enough for a lot of people.
- Everything you ever wanted to know about “Rickrolling”… – The man who sang “Never gonna give you up,” the classic Stock-Aitken-Waterman pop song, makes an unexpected come back. (What’s wrong with Debbie Gibson by the way?!)
- Lies and Statistics – Most people in Britain believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Or do they…?
- Our Bad. Wired Had Some Tips For Apple — We Were Wrong. – Fascinating to see how much things have changed in the last ten years.
- The Best of Technology Writing 2007 – I just finished reading this book myself yesterday. I was considering writing a review but Ars got there first and said it better than I would have done!
- Protests in Tibet erupt into violence – Violence is never a good thing, but the Olympics is undoubtedly a good time to try to raise the profile of the plight of the Tibetan people.
- Open Rights Group questions Phorm – Good to see TalkTalk, BT and Virgin Media’s abuse of their own customers getting more press.
- Dear ISP, I am not a target market – “Some things should just not be for sale, no matter what assurances are on offer or who they come from. Regardless of how the data is acquired and processed, and despite the powerful ISP friends Phorm has made since the PeopleOnPage days, spyware is spywa
- Happy now, bitches? – A fair and balanced analysis of yesterdays announcement of the iPhone software developer kit and “enterprise” functionality.
- Polls say 88% want EU referendum – About a year ago the Daily Mail (I think) published a poll saying pretty much the same thing. But they also asked “Do you understand the Libson treaty?” and about the same percentage of people said “No.” (Can anyone find a link?) Is democracy best served
- Why the Kibibyte is freaking me out – From the “well you learn something new every day” category. Apparently a kilobytes probably isn’t what you think it is…
- Earthquake hits much of England – We actually felt this here in London, although in my half-asleep, half-awake doze I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was real or a dream!
- Danish wind turbine eats itself – To all those that said that wind power was safe…
- Behind the Scenes at the Bay Bridge Construction Site – I saw the construction going on a few times last year, but from a distance while driving past. Interesting to see what they’re doing in more detail.
- Hand-wringing About American Culture – Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? – “Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.” The article concentrates on the US but I don’t think it’s limited to North America.
- America – more hassle than it’s worth? – Next week they’ll announce that all travelers need to wear orange overalls, the next that all flights go straight to Guantanamo… and then they’ll announce that it’s all an elaborate joke and that they just wanted to see how far we’d go before complainin
- eBayer invites buyers to rip him off – It does seem that eBay has become a victim of its own success. Having said that, some of the ways that they’re trying to tackle fraudulent users are clearly bonkers.
- Japan MPs moot halt to executions – Hopefully this will move from “moot” to law, and then from temporary to permanent.
- Designing What’s Right for Consumers – Is it really so hard to design consumer electronics? The manufacturers say it is. Everyone else seems to disagree.
- WordPress 2.3.3 – I’ve upgraded to the current version of WordPress. As ever, if you spot anything amiss please let me know!