The changes were quietly processed and appear to be broader than previous additions. Google's blacklist prevents the names of sites appearing in their Instant and Autocomplete search services, while the pages themselves remain indexed.
Google users searching for terms like "torrent", "BitTorrent" and "RapidShare" will notice that no suggestions and search results appear before they type the full word. As a consequence, there's sharp decrease in Google searches for these terms. Initially only a handful of "piracy-related" terms were censored, but a recent update to the blacklist includes nearly all the top file-sharing websites. […]
There is currently no clear definition of what Google considers to be piracy-inducing, but Google claims that the blacklist helps to reduce online piracy. "While there is no silver bullet for infringement online, this measure is one of several that we have implemented to curb copyright infringement online," Google spokesman Mistique Cano previously told TorrentFreak. […]
"It's a lot more subtle than the censorship attempts made possible by the pending PROTECT IP and SOPA bills, but it's still censorship and it starts small. Google is increasingly becoming a self-righteous Big Brother of the Web. So much for `Do no evil'," Fung told us.
A Pirate Bay insider also told TorrentFreak that Google doesn't live up up to its famous motto. ""It's just another step towards censoring their search engine altogether — without a legal basis. We're also wondering why this happens at almost the same time as they've released Google Music — a service where they sell music which in some cases might be found on The Pirate Bay," he added.
Tag: news
very bruce sterling
Wave Glider Self Propelled Robots Have Begun a Historic Swim Across the Pacific:
“Yesterday, four Wave Gliders—self propelled robots, each about the size of a dolphin—left San Francisco for a 60,000 kilometer journey. Built by Liquid Robotics, the robots will travel together to Hawaii, then split into pairs, one pair heading to Japan, the other to Australia. Waves will power their propulsion systems and the sun will power the sensors that will be measuring things like water salinity, temperature, clarity, and oxygen content; collecting weather data, and gathering information on wave features and currents. It’s not going to be an easy journey—the little robots will face rough weather and have to dodge big ships. […]
The data from the fleet of robots is being streamed via the Iridium satellite network and made freely available—in an accessible form on Google Earth’s Ocean Showcase, and in a more complete form to researchers who register. Liquid Robotics is eager to see what the scientific community does with all the data—so eager, that it’s asking for project abstracts, and will give a prize to the top five proposals—six months use of a Wave Glider optimized to collect whatever information the winner needs.”
Occupy: Pregnant Seattle protester miscarries after being kicked, pepper sprayed
The news just went from ugly to horrific:
“When Fox arrived at the hospital, doctors told her that the baby had no heartbeat.
“They diagnosed that I was having a miscarriage. They said the damage was from the kick and that the pepper spray got to it [the fetus], too,” she said.
“I was worried about it [when I joined the protests], but I didn’t know it would be this bad. I didn’t know that a cop would murder a baby that’s not born yet… I am trying to get lawyers.”
The Scoville heat chart indicates that U.S. grade pepper spray is ten times more painful than the blistering hot habanero pepper, according to Scientific American. While law enforcement officials regulary claim that the spray is safe, researchers at the University of North Carolina and Duke University found that it could “produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death.”
Here’s a photo of Jennifer being hustled to an ambulance after being sprayed. This is from the same event that pepper sprayed Dorli Rainey, the now iconic senior citizen.
EDIT: It is possible the miscarriage report has been fabricated, but this has yet to be verified.
Report: NYPD cop pushes New York Supreme Court Judge into wall
Democracy Now quotes New York Supreme Court Judge Karen Smith:
I was there to take down the names of people who were arrested… As I’m standing there, some African-American woman goes up to a police officer and says, ‘I need to get in. My daughter’s there. I want to know if she’s OK.’ And he said, ‘Move on, lady.’ And they kept pushing with their sticks, pushing back. And she was crying. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he throws her to the ground and starts hitting her in the head,” says Smith. “I walk over, and I say, ‘Look, cuff her if she’s done something, but you don’t need to do that.’ And he said, ‘Lady, do you want to get arrested?’ And I said, ‘Do you see my hat? I’m here as a legal observer.’ He said, ‘You want to get arrested?’ And he pushed me up against the wall.
via bOINGbOING.
like a rose left on a digital doorstep
To celebrate my insanely exciting travel/adventure news, I’ve been blasting my facebook with the good times virus. Here’s a round-up of some of the cheerful links, as well as a few extras:
REQUIRED READING
Why I Quit My Job, an important piece by Kai Nagata, formerly CTV’s Quebec City Bureau Chief.
Human beings don’t always like good nourishment. We seem to love white sugar, and unless we understand why we feel nauseated and disoriented after binging on sweets, we’ll just keep going. People like low-nutrition TV, too. And that shapes the internal, self-regulated editorial culture of news.
let that be the end of it
As if more evidence was required to show that vaccines don’t cause autism, the British study that linked childhood vaccines to autism was recently proven to be a complicated fraud:
An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study’s author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study — and that there was “no doubt” Wakefield was responsible.
“It’s one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors,” Fiona Godlee, BMJ’s editor-in-chief, told CNN. “But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data.”
The full paper from BMJ is here.
Carsten Höller: the deers of perception
A pen running the length of the Hamburger Bahnhof, now the city’s contemparary art museum, contains 12 reindeer, 24 canaries, eight mice and two flies. Giant toadstool sculptures are planted on a mushroom clock that the reindeer can turn with their antlers, and at the centre is a mushroom-shaped “floating hotel” – a bed on a platform complete with minibar, yours for €1,000 a night. (There’s also a raffle giving away free places.) […]
The urine is collected by handlers and stored in fridges by the walls, which also hold both dried and fresh fly agaric mushrooms. By day they’re locked, but at night the fridges are opened, allowing people staying over to sample the contents. However, because only half the reindeer are fed the mushrooms, it’s impossible to know which bottles, if any, contain hallucinogenic urine. […]
One side of the hall is the “test”, the other the “control”. Reindeer on the test side are fed the mushrooms. (“At least in principle,” says Höller, helpfully.) On each side, the reindeer urine is spread on the food of the other animals. From observation posts, visitors watch the behaviour of the canaries, mice and houseflies for signs of intoxication and form their own conclusions. […]
Dorothée Brill, the museum’s lead curator, says: “As far as we can tell, nobody’s done anything they shouldn’t have.” Staff at the restaurant, however, report that some guests “drink the minibar dry”.
A condensate made of light
German physicists create a “super-photon”:
Physicists from the University of Bonn have developed a completely new source of light, a so-called Bose-Einstein condensate consisting of photons. Until recently, expert had thought this impossible. This method may potentially be suitable for designing novel light sources resembling lasers that work in the X-ray range.
TSAfail 2010, link-dump
For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance
"Yes, but starting tomorrow, we’re going to start searching your crotchal area" — this is the word he used, "crotchal" — and you’re not going to like it."
"What am I not going to like?" I asked.
"We have to search up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance," he explained.
"Resistance?" I asked.
"Your testicles," he explained.
‘That’s funny," I said, "because ‘The Resistance’ is the actual name I’ve given to my testicles."
Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA
Bipartisan support should be immediate. For fiscal conservatives, it’s hard to come up with a more wasteful agency than the TSA. For privacy advocates, eliminating an organization that requires you to choose between a nude body scan or genital groping in order to board a plane should be a no-brainer.
Man opts out of porno scanner and grope, told he’ll be fined $10K unless he submits to fondling
He opted out of showing his penis to the government, so they told him he’d have to submit to an intimate testicle fondling. He told the screener, "if you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested." After faffing around with various supervisors and supervisors’ supervisors, he opted not to fly, collected a refund from the American Airlines counter, and started to leave the airport. But before he could go, the supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor told him he wasn’t allowed to leave the checkpoint once he entered it, that he was already in for up to $10,000 in fines, and that he would have to return and allow the man’s minons to palpate his genitals before he’d be allowed to leave the airport.
Lobbyists join the war on terror
The degradations of passing through full-body scanners that provide naked pictures of you to Transportation Security Administration agents may not mean that the terrorists have won — but they do mark victories for a few politically connected high-tech companies and their revolving-door lobbyists. […] But this is government we’re talking about. A program or product doesn’t need to be effective, it only needs to have a good lobby. And the naked-scanner lobby is small but well-connected.
It’s the day ordinary citizens stand up for their rights, stand up for liberty, and protest the federal government’s desire to virtually strip us naked or submit to an "enhanced pat down" that touches people’s breasts and genitals in an aggressive manner. You should never have to explain to your children, "Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it’s a government employee, then it’s OK."
The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change. We have a right to privacy and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we’re guilty until proven innocent. This day is needed because many people do not understand what they consent to when choosing to fly.
TSA Opt-Out Day, Now with a Superfantastic New Twist!
By the way, it is the official position of Goldblog that everyday is opt-out day. There’s no need to wait until November 24th. But come November 24th, here’s an idea you might try to make the day extra-special. It’s a one-word idea: Kilts.
Rape Survivor Devastated by TSA Enhanced Pat Down
Coming back from Chicago, Celeste, like increasing numbers of travelers, was forced to make a difficult choice – either allow strangers to see her naked or allow strangers to touch and squeeze her breasts and groin in full view of other travels and TSA agents. “This was a nightmare come to life,” Celeste says, “I said I didn’t want them to see me naked and the agent started yelling Opt out- we have an opt here. Another agent took me aside and said they would have to pat me down. He told me he was going to touch my genitals and asked if I wouldn’t rather just go through the scanner, that it would be less humiliating for me. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I kept saying I don’t want any of this to happen. I was whispering please don’t do this, please, please.”
Bold legislators in New Jersey and Idaho have introduced bills stopping the new porno-scanners, but that’s not enough — we need to pass these bills in every state! So I set up a thing to make it super-easy to contact your state legislator about it. Just add your name and zip code to our petition and we’ll automatically email your state rep.
An organization seeking advocacy and recognition of the TSA’s and DHS’s actions against our privacy and right to refuse unwarranted search.
Complete List of Airports with Whole Body Imaging/Advanced Imaging Technology Scanners