Daily Archives: 2011/09/30

Sep 30 2011

Radiohead: “We wish the best of luck to the protesters there, but contrary to earlier rumours, we will not be appearing today at Occupy Wall Street.”

A few minutes later, the movement’s official Twitter account surrendered the bad news to their to 22,000 followers: “Radiohead is not coming, we were hoaxed. Please accept our apologies.” The thousands of fans standing wandering around downtown Manhattan looking for the show and finding the protesters, who’d long-planned a march on the New York Police Department at the same time and the labor unions showed up soon thereafter as planned.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/09/radiohead-hoax-did-one-thing-attract-lot-protesters/43192/

See also:

Thousands Show up to Occupy Wall Street, but no Radiohead 
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/223010/20110930/occupy-wall-street-radiohead.htm

Occupy Wall Street Claims Radiohead Hoax; Rally and Critical Mass Ride Still On
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/09/occupy_wall_str_9.php

Live from Occupy Wall Street and the Radiohead Concert That’s Not Happening
http://gawker.com/5845532/live-from-occupy-wall-street-and-the-radiohead-concert-thats-not-happening

‘Occupy Wall Street’ Gets Huge Boost From Labor Unions
http://www.care2.com/causes/occupy-wall-street-gets-huge-boost-from-labor-unions.html

Occupy Wall Street “hoaxed” about Radiohead performance
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-20113987-10391698.html

Wall Street protesters on Radiohead performance: We got hoaxed
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/09/30/2011-09-30_radiohead_not_performing_at_wall_street_protest_despite_ongoing_rumors_protester.html

Occupy Wall Street Radiohead Rumor: Protestors React To Concert Murmurings
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/30/occupy-wall-street-radiohead-rumor_n_989730.html

Radiohead Show ‘Definitely Not Going to Happen,’ Band Says
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/confusion-on-possible-surprise-radiohead-show-downtown/

Radiohead rumor swells Wall Street protest
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/30/us/radiohead-wall-street/

Radiohead rumour rocks Wall Street
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/radiohead-rumour-rocks-wall-street-2364004.html

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Left High & Dry After Radiohead Concert Hoax Debunked
http://origin.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2011/09/occupy-wall-street-protesters-left-high-dry-after-radiohead-concert-hoax-debun

 

Sep 30 2011

NYTIMES, WSJ, CNN now among the first to investigate and report on Radiohead at #OccupyWallStreet

“Rumor of music concert” added to list of “newsworthy” events, right after “police violence and arrests“

and

See also

No Radiohead Serenade at #occupywallstreet
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/09/30/no-radiohead-serenade-at-occupywallstreet/

Radiohead Show ‘Definitely Not Going to Happen,’ Band Says
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/confusion-on-possible-surprise-radiohead-show-downtown/

 

Sep 30 2011

Wall Street as Gated Community

My sister Laura and I took the train to Manhattan on Wednesday to participate in the occupation of Wall Street.  But Wall Street is barricaded.  Yes, pedestrians move on the sidewalks, but police and metal prevent anyone from walking or entering the street.

The protestors are several blocks away at Zuccotti Park.

Again, let me say it:  Wall Street is barricaded, a gated community with security.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/wall-street-as-gated-community/

Sep 30 2011

Developer Donald Trump holds three bars of Gold Bullion after accepting it as a security deposit from the American Precious Metals Exchange (APMEX) for a 10 year lease for APMEX on the 50th floor of a Trump owned property

America’s rich losing tussle with taxman.

Cash-strapped western governments are on the offensive against their own elites. Wealth taxes are up, loopholes are being closed and crackdowns on offshore havens and Swiss bank accounts are gaining momentum.

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/09/30/americas-rich-losing-tussle-with-taxman

Sep 30 2011

Facebook Blocking #OccupyWallStreet You-tube Videos ???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dfoHSZTqUk

Previously:

Did Google censor this Anonymous video? #OccupyWallStreet
http://vrritti.com/2011/09/29/did-google-censor-this-anonymous-video/

Google uses “Yahoo excuse”: Website ActivistPost.com was taken down last Friday due to “an automated process”
http://vrritti.com/2011/09/27/google-uses-yahoo-excuse-website-activistpost-com-was-taken-down-last-friday-due-to-an-automated-process/

Yahoo Mail fixes Occupy Wall Street block. Says automatic spam filters to blame, but that there might be some residual delays as the fix propagates through the system
http://vrritti.com/2011/09/21/yahoo-mail-fixes-occupy-wall-street-block-says-automatic-spam-filters-to-blame-but-that-there-might-be-some-residual-delays-as-the-fix-propagates-through-the-system/

#TwitterCensorship Blocks #OccupyWallStreet from Top Trending Topic Twice
http://vrritti.com/2011/09/24/even-a-rather-non-observant-person-would-have-noticed-by-now-that-the-occupy-wall-street-protest-is-being-ignored-by-the-mainstream-media-or-at-least-not-taken-seriously-corporate-owned-media-knows/

 

Sep 30 2011

Bloomberg Implies Occupy Wall Street Protest’s Days Are Numbered

When he was asked on his weekly radio show whether he’ll let the anti-corporate protesters stay as long as they want, he responded cryptically: “We’ll see. People have a right to protest, but we also have to make sure that people who don’t want to protest can go down the streets unmolested.”

More:
http://gothamist.com/2011/09/30/bloomberg_implies_wall_street_prote.php

Sep 30 2011

It’s the algorithm, stupid! Do algorithms offer the ultimate grounds for exoneration? Can they fail, or only the people writing them?

Examples:

Spam filters
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2007/09/could_yahoos_sp.html
http://www.blog.jbi.in/tipsntricks/turn-off-spam-filtering-in-gmail-and-yahoo-mail/

Finance
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/algorithms-take-control-of-wall-street.ars
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704637704576082512439373244.html

Competition 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/01/foundem_accuses_google_of_wmd_program_against_vertical_search_rivals/
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/11/google_admits_search_algorithm_whitelists/
 http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/12/google-tweaks-algorithm-to-punish-bad-businesses.ars

Privacy
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tense/2011/09/small_dictators_big_bots.html
 http://searchengineland.com/google-no-longer-guessing-about-celebrity-sexual-orientation-95065

Life in general – Algorithms shaping the world around us and inside us, and specifically: THE ALGORITHMS OF WALL STREET
http://gizmodo.com/5824983/humanity-is-owned-by-computer-algorithms-and-resistance-is-futile

Sep 30 2011

This week, the Canadian government presented the renewed bill on copyright protection. The new bill is designed to modernize the current Canadian legislation and tries to balance the demands of consumers with the concerns of the film industry

http://www.futureofcopyright.com/home/blog-post/2011/09/30/canada-reintroduces-copyright-bill.html

Sep 30 2011

Pretty Much Everything Related To You And Facebook Is Recorded In Your Facebook Permanent Record

Thanks to European data privacy rules, some folks have successfully requested and received a detailed list of all the data that Facebook has kept about them. They’ve released a redacted version of the document for one person, which comes in at a hefty 880 pages. To be honest, nothing in this is all that surprising, but it does highlight just how much data Facebook ends up with and that it appears to not delete very much, if anything, ever.

The parts that seemed a bit questionable to me were things like recording every computer from which you’d ever logged in… as well as a list of all other Facebook people who have logged in from that same machine. I’m assuming they use this for security/anti-phishing, but it’s still a bit creepy to keep all that information. The other part that’s a bit strange is that Facebook keeps deleted messages. That’s a bit more troubling, since most people expect that when they delete things, they’re really deleted.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110929/01390216130/pretty-much-everything-related-to-you-facebook-is-recorded-your-facebook-permanent-record.shtml

Sep 30 2011

Google: No Longer Guessing About Celebrity Sexual Orientation (It’s the algorithm’s fault)

As I said, a few hours ago when I started looking into this, I could get these to trigger. But now that no longer happens. As Google won’t say why, I’ll offer my own best guess. It was probably deemed too sensitive.

At a time when the search engine has already been taking heat over what it should or shouldn’t be listing in a search for Rick Santorum, Google probably decided it didn’t want to be the one accused of outing some celebrity, even if it gathered those answers from sources across the web.

Much more:

http://searchengineland.com/google-no-longer-guessing-about-celebrity-sexual-orientation-95065

Sep 30 2011

BREIN Director Tim Kuik thinks News-Service Europe CAN filter out illegally copied files on Usenet, and that it would be the better option. But they don’t want to: “If they filter out copyrighted content, no one will buy one of their subscriptions anymore.”

Dutch language news article:
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/77106/rechter-usenetprovider-moet-illegale-content-verwijderen.html

Sep 30 2011

Waiting for the big bang. If governments are not prioritizing IT security and do not employ people with the right knowledge and expertise, it will take a really big IT disaster to enable change

And the current mix of lack of knowledge, disinterest and incompetence will certainly lead to one

Dutch language article:
http://webwereld.nl/column/108079/het-is-wachten-op-de-grote-klap–column-.html