All right Crass Coders, welcome to our first Code Year Study Hall. The purpose of CYSH is to give us a chance to discuss the weekly lessons and to help each other with any problems we are having with the weekly lessons. Please also share your stats so we can encourage one and other. Continue reading
SOPA and PIPA have been put on hold (e.g. Harry Reid, Lamar Smith and associates have realised the bills won’t pass if they call a vote). Rejoice, but remain vigilant. You know they’ll try again in a few months with a new version of the law with some superficial changes. But for now, success! A very impressive example of people power driven by the Internet.
Hat tip to CBS News, where at time of writing the poll asking whether Congress should pass the SOPA/PIPA bills was running at 97% no.
Late this afternoon hackers identifying themselves as members of various Anonymous groups attacked and disabled the website for the US Justice Department, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the Motion Picture Association of America. The move came after the FBI raided the popular file sharing site Megaupload earlier today and arrested 7 of its operators.It appears that the FBI may be the next target of the hackers. Continue reading
You might notice some changes around your internet today. Some major websites like Wikipedia and Reddit will go black today. Others, like Google, will have special content. Even the Honey Badger is getting involved. The reason for this is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill making its way through congress that will drastically affect the way your internet works. Continue reading
In the interests of helping the ever-evolving English language keep pace with the technological revolution — and with apologies to Germans everywhere — I offer this humble addition to our collective vocabulary.
Moylanfreude (noun)
The slightly shameful enjoyment derived from watching a once-great internet destination painfully and gracelessly tumble down a seemingly-infinite flight of stairs, precipitated, in no small part directly by, but certainly (via an internal company culture dedicated to many parallel and unfortunate characteristics*) encapsulated within, a particular writer who, for reasons upon which I decline to speculate, remains oust-proof in an organization demonstrably dedicated to a philosophy of near-recreational and self-destructive oustiness that verges on the whimsical.
If you use the popular shopping site zappos.com, you have an email coming your way letting you know that your account has been compromised. Hackers were able to access customer names, email addresses, shipping and billing address and the last four digits of credit card numbers. They were also able to access customer passwords, although those were encrypted. The little bit of good news is that if you stored your full credit card number on the site, Zappos stored that information separately.
So, early this morning, BoingBoing.net with some pretty serious accusations towards Google’s falling ethics and a specific bit of fraud that seems to be going on in Kenya. Basically, Kenya does not have a good public business directory. There are no yellow pages and most businesses do not have a web presence. So, a company called Mocality decided they were going to do that. Continue reading
It’s that time again folks: The 2012 Bloggies are coming up fast. Nominations close on Sunday, January 15 at 10:00 PM EST. What is all this? The Bloggies are webblog awards nominated and voted upon by the readers of the internet. (Like Wikipedia!) There are quite a few categories so I’ve listed just a few below with some of last years winners: Continue reading
CES, the Consumer Electronics Show held each January in Las Vegas, is known for two things:
1. Being the first look at the new gadget technology we can expect to see in the year ahead.
2. It’s invariably across the road from the annual porn industry convention held in Las Vegas at the same time. Continue reading