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03 Jun 2011 17:20

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Tech: Dear LulzSec: How about we blame you instead of Sony?

  • OK, LulzSec, we get your point — Sony should take its user security seriously. But that’s a lesson they’ve been learning repeatedly for a month — they didn’t need another group to teach it. Meanwhile, when you write tweets like, “I hear there’s been some funny scamming with jacked Sony accounts. That’s what you get for using the same password everywhere,” you earn no respect from anyone. End users — especially the elderly ones that made up the bulk of your Sony release — have something to lose with these hacks. You, however, act without respect or care for anyone. You know, say what you will about Anonymous, but they appear to at least have strong social/political reasons for what they do. (The comment above, from Dutch Anonymous, sums it up for us.) You’re just in it for the “Lulz,” as if nobody gets hurt while you guys have your fun. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Jun 2011 14:32

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Culture: Book excerpt: Psychopaths are more normal than you think

  • After they arrested me, I sat in my cell and I thought, ‘I’m looking at five to seven years.’ So I asked the other prisoners what to do. They said, ‘Easy! Tell them you’re mad! They’ll put you in a county hospital. You’ll have Sky TV and a PlayStation. Nurses will bring you pizzas.’
  • A diagnosed psychopath named Tony •  Describing how he got put into the Broadmoor mental hospital in England. He pretended to be insane to get out of a jail sentence, after other prisoners told him to. He copied books and movies he’d seen and read, and was sent to the mental asylum. However, when it came time for him to get out – he couldn’t. He actually was a psychopath, according to a number of tests that had been done on him. This excerpt from author Jon Ronson’s “The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry” is a fascinating piece on a subject few know about — how psychopaths are diagnosed and treated.  source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Jun 2011 14:08

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U.S.: Defending Dr. Death: On Jack Kevorkian’s right-to-die legacy

  • A complex ambassador for a complex debate: The death of Jack Kevorkian, which wasn’t artificial, is a great time to reflect on what he meant to an issue still fully unresolved to this day: The right-to-die debate. Jack was a purely Michigan icon, an idiosyncratic figure who defines the post-industrial shakiness and weirdness of the state the same way that two other purely Michigan icons of the era, Insane Clown Posse and Eminem, did — by taking a dark, tough-to-grasp issue or demeanor and just going for it, without worrying about the consequences. It led to over 100 assisted suicides that Kevorkian played a direct role in, a number of legal cases, a raised profile for lawyer Geoffrey Fieger (who actually made a failed gubernatorial run back in 1998), and finally, jail time for Kevorkian. While some criticize what Kevorkian did to this day, we think he represented an important role that actually got people to think about a real issue. More thoughts:
  • Freedom of death One philosophy currently in vogue is libertarianism, which focuses on keeping the government as far away from our personal rights as possible. Is there a more libertarian idea than keeping the government out of our final affairs, instead of gumming up the works? The fact of the matter is, he worked with private citizens on private affairs that they agreed to. To us, it only seems fair to respect this. Maybe government shouldn’t be involved here?
  • A changing society The concept of the hospice only grew in the wake of Kevorkian’s notoriety. The National Association of Home Care and Hospice notes that in 1990, the year Kevorkian completed his first assisted suicide, 76,000 people used Medicare Hospice Outlays. In 2008, the number topped 1 million for the first time. So, even if it isn’t exactly done Jack’s way, we are focusing on end-of-life issues more. And that’s a huge credit to him.
  • Was he the right guy? Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson reacted to Kevorkian’s death by suggesting that “the cause of aging and death with dignity is so complex that I don’t think Kevorkian was the right ambassador for that message.” But, really, that was the problem. Nobody was dealing with it on a serious scale until Jack came along. He put the issue in our faces until we finally started to take it seriously. That deserves our respect. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Jun 2011 13:43

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U.S.: Sky Express bus crash: Driver charged with manslaughter

  • crash Early Tuesday morning, a major bus crash killed four people in Virginia, and many others on the 58-passenger bus had to go to the hospital after the bus they were on flipped over.
  • company The government shut down the bus company that owned the vehicle, Sky Express, after the crash; it had garnered many federal safety violations in the past, including driver fatigue.
  • chargesToday, officials charged the driver behind the wheel during the crash, Kin Yiu Cheung, with involuntary manslaughter for the passenger deaths. Fatigue played a role in the crash. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Jun 2011 12:18

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U.S.: Unemployment creeps upward for second month in a row

  • 9.1% unemployment in May, up from 9% in April  source
  • » That’s a .2% increase since March, when unemployment was looking “good” at 8.9%. A total of 83,000 jobs were added in the (nonfarm) private sector; however, 29,000 governmental employees got the axe last month, bringing the total number of jobs added down to 54,000. Here’s to a better month.
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jun 2011 22:48

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Biz: Does Groupon’s IPO suggest a bubble ready to pop?

  • I think investors will go for this one. Whether or not it’s worth the valuation it comes at is still an open question.
  • Jacob Funds chairman Ryan Jacob • Asking a fair question about Groupon’s IPO, which the company expects to raise three quarters of a billion dollars, and could put the company’s valuation in the tens of billions. Are we in another tech bubble? Probably. If it pops, will it pop on the day Groupon hits the stock exchange? Probably not. Still though — Groupon has only been around for a little over two years (yet it feels like much longer), so they’re the ones who’ll probably get more scrutiny than anyone else here. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jun 2011 21:25

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U.S.: Sony hacked yet again, or LulzSec’s continually-growing rep

  • Not this $@(& again. Somehow, Sony managed to get itself hacked by another group of hackers who want to cause some drama and security issues for them, proving a couple of things: First, screwing with white-hat hackers, as Sony did, is a terrible idea, and they’ve been learning that lesson repeatedly for a solid month or two. Second, Lulzsec appears to be obsessed with drawing as much attention as humanly possible. In a month, they’ve hacked Fox, PBS, Sony and the contestant list to the upcoming “X Factor” show. Seriously? In it for the “Lulz”? These attacks are way too malicious and dangerous for something so innocuous. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

02 Jun 2011 20:07

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Politics: Chris Christie’s controversial chopper convoy costs Christie cash

  • $2,151.50 the out-of-pocket cost the New Jersey governor will pay for his helicopter flight to his son’s high school baseball game … which kinda looks sort of wrong
  • $1,232.29 the amount the state Republican party will pay for the leg of the journey from the game to a donor event, where Iowans tried to get him to run for president source
  • » But he says he doesn’t use it much! Since the governor took office in 2010, he says he’s only used the chopper 33 times — a level he describes as the “most judicious” of any recent governor. He was trying to also prevent state troopers from speeding down the highway. We have a suggestion for you, Chris Christie: You have three things on your schedule you need to be at. Instead of trying to cram so much in, pick two.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jun 2011 17:07

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World: Yemen’s Sanaa airport closed amidst chaotic violence

  • The scene in Yemen: The depressing, daily drumbeat of violence, upheaval and power struggle continues, and in this case, things are looking like they could get a lot worse before any better. The airport in Sanaa has closed, amidst some of the most sustained, violent clashing in Yemen since the initial protests against the Saleh government. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jun 2011 16:27

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U.S.: NH GOPers aren’t all keen on crushing union rights

  • 2 New Hampshire GOP leaders resign over anti-union legislative agenda source
  • » Protest through departure: Two prominent Republican legislators from the state of New Hampshire have decided to call it quits, resignations in protest of the hard-line, anti-union agenda of the state’s House Speaker, Bill O’Brien. They are House Deputy Majority Leader Mike Quandt (whose father, Rep. Marshall Quandt, was removed from a leadership position for failing to support a union-busting amendment), and House Whip Tim Copeland. Said Quandt the younger: “I cannot sit by and participate in a leadership team that is bent on destroying the strong labor force and good benefits that we have in our state. I cannot condone the incredible disrespect that Bill O’Brien has shown to other members of our caucus who are trying to represent their constituents.” (h/t ThinkProgress)
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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