Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on TwitterBe a Facebook FanTumble us!

08 Dec 2010 10:55

tags

Tech: CHROME OS NOTEBOOK DOESN’T HAVE CAPS LOCK (SAD FACE)

  • Look, Chrome OS is cool. The idea behind it is pretty rad, and it might actually make Microsoft irrelevant (finally). But this whole lack of CAPS LOCK THING WE CAN’T GET BEHIND. TO PROTEST THIS, WE’RE WRITING THE REST OF THIS POST IN CAPS LOCK, BECAUSE WE WANT TO SHOW HOW ALIVE THE IDEA OF HAVING A CAPS LOCK MAKES US. WE FEEL ALIVE. source

08 Dec 2010 10:38

tags

Biz: Bourbon’s unholy union with golf, faucets will finally end

  • Fun fact of the day: The company that makes Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Knob Creek, and a bunch of non-bourbon liquor has significant interests in two other types of business. One is golf equipment (most notably Titleist) and the other is home improvement (you know them from Moen faucets and Master Lock locks). If this sounds like a absolutely idiotic set of business interests for one company to have, activist investor William Ackman agrees with you, and is convincing the corporate parent, Fortune Brands, to split up these interests. (Ackman is also the driving force behind a who’d-a-thunk-it merger of Borders and Barnes & Noble which was proposed this week.) All this will lead up to an eventual sale of the Jim Beam brand, which ShortFormBlog is interested in buying. See, because online publishing and bourbon go together so well. (Flickr photo comes from our not-really-friend nez, who owns a bottle of Jim Beam.) source

08 Dec 2010 10:22

tags

Biz, World: PayPal explains why they dropped Wikileaks so quickly

  • We have an acceptable use policy and their job is make sure that our customers are protected, making sure that we comply with regulations around the world and making sure that we protect our brand.
  • PayPal’s VP of Platform Osama Bedier • Explaining why his company chose to block Wikileaks. Simply put, they read the State Department’s letter to Wikileaks saying what they were doing was illegal, they decided to block the site on those grounds. Bedier also noted that he isn’t fazed by threats of an Anonymous DDoS attack: “One of the signs that you’re a successful payments company is that hackers start to target you,” he saild. “This case isn’t anything different.” This topic was unpopular with the European conference he was talking to, BTW. It’s also important to note that a letter from the State Department is not a legal decision. source

08 Dec 2010 10:10

tags

World: Anonymous takes out MasterCard to avenge Julian Assange

  • action Wikileaks has lost a number of business ties in just a few days – including Amazon, PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard. Anonymous is upset. Don’t upset anonymous.
  • reaction Not long after MasterCard shut Wikileaks out of its payment mechanism, Anonymous did pulled out the DDoS card. Anonymous shut down MasterCard. Wow. source
  • » Yeah, but… : Not to downplay what our friends at Anonymous did, but nobody really goes to MasterCard’s Web site. If they really wanted to hurt them (not suggesting this – definitely not) they’d attack their payment-processing mechanism.

08 Dec 2010 09:59

tags

World: China clamps down before Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel award ceremony

  • 272 people harassed or jailed prior to the Nobel ceremony source