newscientist New Scientist
Sexy ducks, semen quality and a tenuous link to Alan Moore http://bit.ly/eClJyL
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
The Real Housewives of Wall Street
Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the "other" budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous..."
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Matt Taibbi @'Rolling Stone'
New Zealand Government Rushes Through Controversial Anti-Piracy Law
The New Zealand government has surprised the public and even some MPs by moving to rush through its controversial 3 strikes-style legislation today. The new measures will allow for users to be disconnected from the Internet for up to 6 months, based on infringement claims from copyright holders.
In a surprise development, during the next few hours New Zealand’s government is to rush through legislation that will target Internet users who share copyrighted material online without rightsholder permission.
The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill, which unanimously passed its first reading in Parliament in April 2010, will put in place a 3 strikes-style regime, whereby Internet service providers will be initially required to send warning letters to alleged infringers at the behest of rights holders.
New Zealand’s Copyright Tribunal will be empowered to rule on cases of alleged repeat infringement and will be given the authority to hand down fines up to a maximum of $15,000 ($11,733 US).
For repeat offenders, a six month period of Internet disconnection may be applied, a measure too far for Green MP Gareth Hughes who wasn’t even aware the Bill was coming up today.
”It really surprised me because we haven’t debated it since November,” he said.
Hughes later confirmed he would request an amendment to remove the suspension clause but a spokesperson for Commerce Minister Simon Power said it would be opposed. While the Greens are against disconnections, they supports the Bill in principle.
Today’s second reading of the Bill is being accompanied by a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which in part is aimed at clarifying burden of proof issues in a current clause.
According to intellectual property lawyer Rick Shera, the clause created a presumption in favour of copyright owners and the changes being considered remove the reference to the presumption of guilt being “conclusive”.
“I do act for a number of copyright owners, I can’t see why there is a need for a presumption, I mean if copyright owners are sure of their evidence then they would simply submit that evidence to the copyright tribunal,” Shera told NBR. “The tribunal is perfectly capable of weighing up whose evidence is better, that’s what tribunals do all the time.”
The Bill is expected to pass its third and final stage during the next few hours. The news is already causing protests on Twitter, where users are calling for a repeat of last year’s demonstrations.
enigmax @'Torrent Freak'
In a surprise development, during the next few hours New Zealand’s government is to rush through legislation that will target Internet users who share copyrighted material online without rightsholder permission.
The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill, which unanimously passed its first reading in Parliament in April 2010, will put in place a 3 strikes-style regime, whereby Internet service providers will be initially required to send warning letters to alleged infringers at the behest of rights holders.
New Zealand’s Copyright Tribunal will be empowered to rule on cases of alleged repeat infringement and will be given the authority to hand down fines up to a maximum of $15,000 ($11,733 US).
For repeat offenders, a six month period of Internet disconnection may be applied, a measure too far for Green MP Gareth Hughes who wasn’t even aware the Bill was coming up today.
”It really surprised me because we haven’t debated it since November,” he said.
Hughes later confirmed he would request an amendment to remove the suspension clause but a spokesperson for Commerce Minister Simon Power said it would be opposed. While the Greens are against disconnections, they supports the Bill in principle.
Today’s second reading of the Bill is being accompanied by a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which in part is aimed at clarifying burden of proof issues in a current clause.
According to intellectual property lawyer Rick Shera, the clause created a presumption in favour of copyright owners and the changes being considered remove the reference to the presumption of guilt being “conclusive”.
“I do act for a number of copyright owners, I can’t see why there is a need for a presumption, I mean if copyright owners are sure of their evidence then they would simply submit that evidence to the copyright tribunal,” Shera told NBR. “The tribunal is perfectly capable of weighing up whose evidence is better, that’s what tribunals do all the time.”
The Bill is expected to pass its third and final stage during the next few hours. The news is already causing protests on Twitter, where users are calling for a repeat of last year’s demonstrations.
enigmax @'Torrent Freak'
The Winklevoss twins are only the beginning of Zuckerberg's problems
Mark Zuckerberg may have vanquished the Winklevoss twins but Paul Ceglia says he should be entitled to the lion's share of Facebook. Photograph: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Mark Zuckerberg might have to create a "Don't like" button for people claiming they own all or a fraction of Facebook. Having already seen off the Winklevoss twins who claimed he stole the idea for Facebook from them, Zuckerberg now faces a convicted fraudster who says he has a contract giving him 84% of the social network.
Paul Ceglia, from Wellsville, New York, said Zuckerberg signed a contract with him that shows he should be entitled to the lion's share of the business – and late on Monday night released, through his lawyers in the US, a tranche of emails that purport to show him and the Facebook chief executive discussing, between July 2003 and July 2004, various matters relating to "thefacebook" – as the site was known in its early days.
The case will be heard in federal court, following a ruling at the end of March that Ceglia and Zuckerberg live in different states – though the latter grew up in New York before going to Harvard, and then to California where he turned the company into the world-spanning social network, with about 600 million members.
Ceglia claims that in 2003 he hired Zuckerberg, then an 18-year-old first-year undergraduate at Harvard, to do some coding for a site called Streetfax (later Streetdelivery) that he was planning. Zuckerberg was paid $1,000 on a "work for hire" contract, Ceglia has contended in court, and then put to work on a project called "The Face Book" or "The Page Book" in which Ceglia invested $1,000.
Certainly, when Facebook first launched, it was called "thefacebook" – but the other details are disputed by Facebook and Zuckerberg's lawyers.
Among the emails released by Ceglia through his lawyers, DLA Piper, is one in which Zuckerberg apparently tells Ceglia he is thinking of shutting the site down because it is having so little success, despite the payment made by Ceglia to keep it going.
In response Facebook has said the emails, and the contract on which Ceglia claims to have Zuckerberg's signature, are fakes – and point to Ceglia's convictions on counts of fraud and past arrests.
Ceglia was arrested and charged with criminal fraud and grand larceny in 2009, after the wood pellet company he and his wife run failed to deliver $200,000 worth of orders to customers in four states. A lawyer for the Ceglias then said the money had been invested in machinery, labour and subcontractors for the pellets.
Ironically, Ceglia has also said that fraud charge was the reason he discovered his claim to Facebook – that it was only when looking through papers relating to those cases that he discovered the old contract with Zuckerberg.
Ceglia first filed suit last summer, and has now added extra evidence in the form of the emails. DLA Piper has said it performed "weeks" of due diligence on Ceglia's claims to show that they stood up – including an "electronic analysis" of the contract where Ceglia signed up Zuckerberg.
But the case is even more complicated. Andrew Logan, founder and chief executive of a company called StreetDelivery, claims that in 2003 Ceglia was working for him at the time he claims to have hired Zuckerberg to code Streetfax.
That could mean that Ceglia's hiring of Zuckerberg – and any intellectual property created there – actually reverts to Logan. For Ceglia, even if he wins he might lose.
For Zuckerberg, though, it's just another day proving that while failure is an orphan, success definitely has many, many parents.
Charles Arthur @'The Guardian'
Paul Ceglia, from Wellsville, New York, said Zuckerberg signed a contract with him that shows he should be entitled to the lion's share of the business – and late on Monday night released, through his lawyers in the US, a tranche of emails that purport to show him and the Facebook chief executive discussing, between July 2003 and July 2004, various matters relating to "thefacebook" – as the site was known in its early days.
The case will be heard in federal court, following a ruling at the end of March that Ceglia and Zuckerberg live in different states – though the latter grew up in New York before going to Harvard, and then to California where he turned the company into the world-spanning social network, with about 600 million members.
Ceglia claims that in 2003 he hired Zuckerberg, then an 18-year-old first-year undergraduate at Harvard, to do some coding for a site called Streetfax (later Streetdelivery) that he was planning. Zuckerberg was paid $1,000 on a "work for hire" contract, Ceglia has contended in court, and then put to work on a project called "The Face Book" or "The Page Book" in which Ceglia invested $1,000.
Certainly, when Facebook first launched, it was called "thefacebook" – but the other details are disputed by Facebook and Zuckerberg's lawyers.
Among the emails released by Ceglia through his lawyers, DLA Piper, is one in which Zuckerberg apparently tells Ceglia he is thinking of shutting the site down because it is having so little success, despite the payment made by Ceglia to keep it going.
In response Facebook has said the emails, and the contract on which Ceglia claims to have Zuckerberg's signature, are fakes – and point to Ceglia's convictions on counts of fraud and past arrests.
Ceglia was arrested and charged with criminal fraud and grand larceny in 2009, after the wood pellet company he and his wife run failed to deliver $200,000 worth of orders to customers in four states. A lawyer for the Ceglias then said the money had been invested in machinery, labour and subcontractors for the pellets.
Ironically, Ceglia has also said that fraud charge was the reason he discovered his claim to Facebook – that it was only when looking through papers relating to those cases that he discovered the old contract with Zuckerberg.
Ceglia first filed suit last summer, and has now added extra evidence in the form of the emails. DLA Piper has said it performed "weeks" of due diligence on Ceglia's claims to show that they stood up – including an "electronic analysis" of the contract where Ceglia signed up Zuckerberg.
But the case is even more complicated. Andrew Logan, founder and chief executive of a company called StreetDelivery, claims that in 2003 Ceglia was working for him at the time he claims to have hired Zuckerberg to code Streetfax.
That could mean that Ceglia's hiring of Zuckerberg – and any intellectual property created there – actually reverts to Logan. For Ceglia, even if he wins he might lose.
For Zuckerberg, though, it's just another day proving that while failure is an orphan, success definitely has many, many parents.
Charles Arthur @'The Guardian'
My Robot Friend - Spring Fever Mix 2011
'punk, post-punk, post-post-punk, post-post-post punk, and punky brewster'
ADF: A Venn Diagram for Morons
(Click to enlarge)
Dear Bob Ellis, Brig Jim Wallace et al, I've created this helpful venn diagram for you. Should clear things up Via
Why are heads rolling at the ADFA?
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