Monday, May 8, 2017
Court Junkie podcast episode on Eric Frein trial I was a law clerk when the murder of Corporal Bryon Dickson and near-murder of Trooper Alex Douglass sparked a weeks-long manhunt that resulted in the capture, trial and conviction of Eric Matthew Frein. I won’t talk about anything I did with …Wednesday, May 3, 2017
A disturbing sex trend called ‘stealthing’ is on the rise ‘Stealthing’ is the non-consensual removal a condom during sex. Alexandra Brodsky’s article in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law [PDF] is powerful, nuanced and well-presented. And I, too, can be powerful, …Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Prosecuted by her legal counterpart: ‘It destroyed my life in so many ways’ This DA should resign, now: At least six defense attorneys and investigators say they faced threats of criminal charges by the Orleans parish district attorney for doing their jobs, the Guardian has found. Since …Friday, April 21, 2017
A month after dismissing federal prosecutors, Justice Department does not have any U.S. attorneys in place Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a lot of things. But so far, none of those things include “good at being Attorney General.” Would you hire a builder who, when he finds out you …Thursday, April 20, 2017
Sources: Nintendo to launch SNES mini this year Tom Phillips writes at Eurogamer: The reality of a SNES mini is certainly exciting - while the NES was unique for being Nintendo's first home console, the SNES arguably boasts the better software line-up, and a catalogue of classics far more advanced …Tuesday, April 18, 2017
In Travis County custody case, jury will search for real Alex Jones Jonathan Tilove reports this story for American-Statesman: Beginning Monday, a jury will be selected at the Travis County Courthouse that in the next two weeks will be asked to sort out whether there is a difference between the …Saturday, April 15, 2017
Unenforceable ban on atheists holding public office still on the books in 8 states This is an old story but after reading an article about a study [PDF] suggesting there are many atheists who don’t want to admit they’re atheists, I remembered reading about how a country which prides …Friday, April 14, 2017
Mentally incompetent Utah man dies in hospital after jail episode left him paralyzed Is this the kind of country where we let mental illness go untreated to the point where someone in jail for fighting with a couple of cops is effectively allowed to commit suicide, while on suicide watch? Jail video …Tuesday, April 11, 2017
United Airlines Tumbles After Social-Media Storm Goes Global Justin Bachman and Linly Lin reporting at Bloomberg Markets: United Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz apologized on Monday for “having to re-accommodate these customers.” The airline is conducting a review and seeks to resolve the …Monday, April 10, 2017
The magnificent stupidity of the “nuclear option” It’s a trainwreck. Republicans undoubtedly stole the nomination from Merrick Garland, which makes calls by the GOP for Democrats to stop being obstructionist rich in hypocrisy. But then again, there’s plenty of hypocrisy in Democratic …Thursday, March 23, 2017
Senate Republicans Vote To Gut Internet Privacy Hamza Shaban, writing for BuzzFeed: The Senate voted Thursday to make it easier for internet service providers to share sensitive information about their customers, a first step in overturning landmark privacy rules that consumer advocates and …Thursday, March 23, 2017
Heinz running Don Draper’s ‘Pass the Heinz’ ads Tim Nudd at Adweek: In a meta union of advertising’s real and fictional worlds, Heinz just greenlighted the ads—and will run them almost exactly as Draper intended, beginning today, in print and out-of-home executions in New York City. This is awesome, …Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Trans characters in the first big video games of 2017 Laura Dale, writing at Polygon: The past month of AAA video game releases might be the most interesting I have ever experienced as a trans woman, meaning someone who was designated male at birth but is now living as female. While far from perfect …Friday, January 13, 2017
Justice Dept. internal watchdog to investigate FBI’s Clinton inquiry The inquiry by the Justice Department's inspector general, likely to keep open the wounds of the bitter 2016 presidential race, will focus on whether "policies or procedures were not followed" by the FBI and Justice …Monday, December 19, 2016
Prenda Law “copyright trolls” Steele and Hansmeier arrested Justice.Friday, December 16, 2016
NBC stupidly shutting down Breaking News app, service The decision, as it often does in the media business, came down to revenue. "Unfortunately, despite its consumer appeal, Breaking News has not been able to generate enough revenue to sustain itself," Ascheim said in the letter supplied by NBC …Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Wells Fargo Killing Sham Account Suits by Using Arbitration [Jennifer] Zeleny, a lawyer who lives outside Salt Lake City and opened a Wells Fargo account when she started a new law practice, said it would be impossible for her to agree to arbitrate her dispute over an account that she had never …Monday, November 28, 2016
‘Dark Meat’ by Gabriel Thompson Failing to record injuries is one strategy to create the illusion of a safe workplace. Another is to fail to refer workers to doctors for proper tests and diagnoses. Each time an injury causes an employee to miss a day of work or to receive medical …Thursday, November 17, 2016
FCC abides by GOP request, deletes everything from meeting agenda Wheeler's attempt to impose new set-top box rules that help consumers avoid paying cable box rental fees may also be doomed. Consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge sent a letter to Trump today urging him to side with consumers …Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Dropbox employee’s password reuse led to theft of 60M+ user credentials Kate Conger, reporting at TechCrunch: Dropbox disclosed in 2012 that an employee’s password was acquired and used to access a document with email addresses, but did not disclose that passwords were also acquired in the theft. …Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Secret Cameras Record Baltimore’s Every Move From Above Pritchett had no idea that as he spoke, a small Cessna airplane equipped with a sophisticated array of cameras was circling Baltimore at roughly the same altitude as the massing clouds. The plane’s wide-angle cameras captured an area of …Thursday, July 7, 2016
NJ law would require pet stores sell only rescue animals John C. Ensslin reports for The Record: New pet stores in New Jersey would be allowed to sell only cats and dogs obtained from shelters, pounds and animal rescue organization under a bill the state Senate passed Thursday. The bill still has …Thursday, May 12, 2016
A Slack bot to alert about missing children [caption id=“attachment_2481” align=“aligncenter” width=“700”]Slack screenshot of MissingKidsBot[/caption] From the product page of MissingKidsBot, built by David Markovich and Daniel Doubrovkine: According to the …Monday, March 7, 2016
Apple users targeted in first known Mac ransomware campaign Jim Finkle reports for Reuters: Hackers infected Macs through a tainted copy of a popular program known as Transmission, which is used to transfer data through the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing network, Palo Alto said on a blog …Thursday, March 3, 2016
The perils of marriage equality Professor Kimberly Mutcherson of Rutgers Law School writes at Concurring Opinions about Professor Katherine Franke’s recent book ‘Wedlocked: the Perils of Marriage Equality’: We do not want to reinforce familial hierarchies by forcing people into …Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Enough with the conspiracy theories about Justice Scalia’s death I read this earlier today: "As a former homicide commander, I am stunned that no autopsy was ordered for Justice Scalia," William O. Ritchie wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday, according to reports. After seeking to cast doubt …Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Google begins rolling out free internet to public housing in Fiber cities This is a big deal. I worked at the Philadelphia Housing Authority for years and talked to a lot of kids and adults about their desire to get online. Philly isn’t yet on Google’s Fiber expansion roadmap, but this …Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Retiring founder wants $1M for his SCOTUS audio archive Oyez is a robust archive of audio recordings and other information spanning much of the history of the Supreme Court of the United States. Its founder Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Jerry Goldman is looking for a buyer as he nears …Saturday, January 23, 2016
LucasFilm to toy vendors: No Rey Michael Boehm at Sweatpants and Coffee: The insider, who was at those meetings, described how initial versions of many of the products presented to Lucasfilm featured Rey prominently. At first, discussions were positive, but as the meetings wore on, one or more …Thursday, January 14, 2016
U.S. DOT paving way for self-driving cars
Chris Ziegler reports at The Verge:
DOT and NHTSA will develop the new tools necessary for this new era of vehicle safety and mobility, and will seek new authorities when they are necessary to ensure that fully autonomous vehicles, including those …