F.B.I. Seizes Web Servers, Knocking Sites Offline – NYTimes.com Seriously, at some point, someone needs to start running training seminars for law enforcement agencies, explain what technology actually *is*. I have no doubt that they employ many people who know, but it's be useful if the people doing the physical work weren't half bright morons hopped on fake authority. Because while knocking a few sites off the intertubes isn't the end of the world, it still is neither right nor fair that innocent third parties like pinboard.in, or Instapaper should be knocked off the internet, and their paying customers deprived of their service (and therefore their money) by government incompetence just because they happen to be in the same room as a computer someone might have used once to do something wrong. This sort of thing makes me disproportionately angry, not for what it is, but for the principle it represents: that the government can screw people for no reason, any time it likes, and receive no comebacks, not even be required to make an apology. Power and stupidity and no accountability. How do we stop this, exactly?
Adramelech Books Here is where you can order C.J. Lines new short short collection, Cold Mirrors. You should do this, pretty much right now. I routinely describe his previous novel as one of the most gleefully horrible things I've ever read, and if you like horror, and haven't read it, you've missed a treat. This short story collection promises to be superb, so seriously, make with the clicky and the shopping.
WordPress › Passwords Reset The WordPress main repository got hack the other day, and several popular plugins were modified to carry malicious code. Long strong short: if you are running a WordPress blog, and have updated your plugins in the last few days, then you should probably check to see if there are new updates available. Most plugins are unaffected, but a few of those that are are very common. The new updates will fix the problem.
Construction Equipment Playground Opens In Las Vegas – PSFK What's that you say? An opportunity to play with heavy machinery in a giant sandbox? Why yes, I would like a go on that. Another thing added to the list of reasons to visit Vegas.
Infovore » Where’s @towerbridge? The lovely bot that tweeted the activity of Tower Bridge has been killed, and with it, the very, very pleasing history of its activity over the last few years. Come on twitter, you can do better than this.
Apple’s iTunes in iCloud ‘won’t launch in the UK this year’ – Telegraph I am spittingly furious about this. Fucking PRS shitehawks, screwing the consumer once again. I have bought and paid for my music. There is absolutely no reasonable argument that says I should not have access to it wherever I damn well please, because shockingly, it is *mine*. I have already paid their members what they are entitled to when I bought the fucking stuff, and I find it infuriating that they somehow believe that they have the right to get in the way of my use of their product past that. (Why yes, I do really, really want iCloud.) It's not as if it's remotely meaningful – I *can* (and do) already do everything iCloud will let me do, just less conveniently. Yet PRS want someone else to give them money in exchange for making my life more convenient a third party making my life. They very embodiment of the standard music industry practise of getting between artist and consumer and making things worse for both while skimming the money off the top. How is that related to what their artists do? PRS are playing territory marking office-politics type games on matters that are unrelated to the actual rights in the music, and everything to do with ownership of products. What's next, are they going to GPS tag all my CDs, to make sure I don't carry them outside my house?
Amazon.com now selling more ebooks than print books In the UK, they're only selling more ebooks than hardbacks, but in the US, it's only taken 4 years for ebooks to pass print, so I imagine it'll be even quicker here. Still: if your business depends on dead trees, it's time to start thinking about switching. And when I say "time to start thinking about", I mean "if you don't have a plan in place already, you're probably fucked".
On TermKit | Steven Wittens – Acko.net This looks interesting. He's right – while I need the power of Terminal a lot of the time, there is absolutely no reason why it has to look and behave like it did 20 years and more ago.
WARNING: This is Horrifying. « Kelly Sue DeConnick Go here, read what Kelly Sue has to say (and she's right it is horrifying), and then I defy you not to put your hand in your pocket and sponsor a good cause.
Why I have left Twitpic, and why you should too. If you are a photographer who likes to maintain any kind of control over the licensing of their images, or even if you just don't like corporations whose default assumption is that they should have all the rights to do as they please forever and ever, including profiting off their users creativity without sharing that profit with their users, you should probably stop using Twitpic.