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Jul 25, 2013 ∞

NLRB: Overbroad social media policies may violate NLRA

Sue Reisinger, writing at Corporate Counsel:

In a warning to employers, the National Labor Relations Board has “unliked” certain social media policies that restrict an employee’s right to speak critically of the employer online, unless the policies were set in collective bargaining.

It’s clear many companies didn’t consider the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) implications when they developed their social media policies. It’s often HR professionals that have to draft these policies, but the onus can’t be placed solely on them to catch how the new rules might implicate nuances of the NLRA. Any company who has implemented or plans to implement a social media policy is well-advised to have a labor and employment attorney review it first.

Jul 23, 2013 ∞

Christmas in jail

John Futty, reporting for The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio:

Judge Michael J. Holbrook placed Young on probation yesterday for five years and ordered that she spend a minimum of three days in jail each Christmas while on probation.

This made me smile. Now, crime is bad, and Christmas in jail is bad. But what a creative way to punish a fraudster without wasting taxpayer money on a non-violent offender.

Jul 22, 2013 ∞

Stop taking multivitamins. Seriously.

I’ll be the first to admit I took multivitamins on and off for years, always assuming vitamins could only be good for you. But the overwhelming majority of scientific studies on the subject not only debunks the myth that they help, but strongly suggests that they may be harming us.

The article I link to above is longer than most I share here, but it’s also more important that you read the whole thing. It could (and, to be honest, should) change your mind on including multivitamins as a part of your daily diet, at least without your doctor’s advice.

Jul 22, 2013 ∞

Norwegian rape victim Marte Deborah Dalelv "pardoned" by UAE

Norwegian rape victim Marte Deborah Dalelv “pardoned” by UAE

I wrote yesterday about Ms. Dalelv’s 16-month sentence for sex outside marriage, among other absurd charges to levy against a victim of rape, in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I’m happy to report that, according to Reuters, the 24-year-old has been “pardoned” and will be able to go back to Norway.

The fact that UAE called it a “pardon” is as unconscionable as the sentence itself, but freedom by any name is better than being jailed in the kind of nation that would punish a rape victim.

Jul 21, 2013 ∞

Dubai: Where rape is only a crime if you're the victim

Dubai: Where rape is only a crime if you’re the victim

Update: she has been “pardoned.”

A Norwegian woman was raped, reported it to police, and was charged and convicted of extramarital sex, drinking alcohol, and perjury. She was sentenced to 16 months in jail.

For being raped.

And that’s three months longer than her attacker.

This is a major problem of international law. What happens when the economic and business relationship between two states places citizens in the crosshairs of antiquated and ignorant laws? What is the remedy when the Western expectations of a visitor are shattered by foreign norms that, well, prompt Western folks to use words like “antiquated” and “ignorant.”

The Norwegian government has the woman safely housed in what sounds like a naval base, but there is a warrant out for her arrest.

We will find out. I’ll be keeping an eye on this story.

Jul 19, 2013 ∞

MIT wants pre-release review of Secret Service file on Aaron Swartz

Kevin Poulsen, at Wired's Threat Level blog:

MIT argues that those people might face threats and harassment if their names become public. But it’s worth noting that names of third parties are already redacted from documents produced under FOIA.

MIT has screwed up repeatedly throughout this ordeal, and this is not a sign of improvement. If anything, their interference itself might prompt anonymous hackers to launch new salvos against their networks or dox their personnel.

Jul 15, 2013 ∞

Tim Stevens is no longer editor-in-chief at Engadget

Two years is a good run, and the site looks and reads far better than it did before his reign, but Tim Stevens’ exit from his role as editor-in-chief at Aol property Engadget is bad sign for the site and it’s owner.

It’s never a good sign, in business or blogging (and especially when your product is a hybrid), when a leadership role is vacated before a replacement is appointed.

May 27, 2013 ∞

German railroad mulling anti-graffiti drones

With US authorities pushing for easier backdoors into electronic communications systems, a network of anti-graffiti drones looks like a good front for general state-wide surveillance. The German privacy ethic runs deep, but it may provide an interesting model for US authorities to consider in the long-term.

May 24, 2013 ∞

10 great free monospaced fonts for programming

I can understand why programmers may want to consider using a decent font, but it’s worth noting that writers, particularly those who prefer plain text, should also pay attention to the fonts they’re using.

I like to write with a monospace font for two reasons. First, there’s nostalgia in using a monospace font that connects me to the days I spent in college writing on a typewriter. Second, I find them easier to look at for long periods of time than standard serif or sans serif fonts.

If you write often on a computer, you owe it to yourself to be a little picky about the fonts you use.

May 24, 2013 ∞

Evernote's desktop apps get integrated reminders and a task list, no love for mobile yet

Evernote’s desktop apps get integrated reminders and a task list, no love for mobile yet

Evernote’s reminders are great news, and something I’ve been waiting for since at least February, but here’s all that matters to me:

We have big plans to expand the functionality, and to bring it to more platforms in the very (very) near future.

I can’t wait to get this on mobile. I’ve long hoped that some day Evernote would become the one-app-to-rule-them-all for me. I already use it as a data archive, storage for manuals, occasional journal, research tool, and songwriting management tool. True, cross-platform task management would supercharge the service for me, and may even end my Any.do versus Wunderlist problem.

In related news, Wunderlist has added hashtag support in its web incarnation, and so far I’m actually finding it’s very useful.

May 15, 2013 ∞

Strongbox and Aaron Swartz: Open source, anonymous tips

There is plenty of Google news today coming out of their annual I/O conference, but this looks far more important and big-picture, if it actually gets used.

May 14, 2013 ∞

Minnesota governor signs same-sex marriage bill into law

Number twelve and counting; this looks to be a big year for marriage equality in the United States.

May 8, 2013 ∞

The pressing need for hospital pricing regulation

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has published data on what hospitals charge for the most common procedures. There is much to look at, and other have done good reporting on it, notably Sarah Kliff and Dan Keating at the Washington Post and Barry Meier, Jo Craven McGinty and Julie Creswell at the New York Times.

The bottom line is that hospital pricing practices appear from this data to be arbitrary. I wouldn’t be surprised if pricing flucutated from year to year based on what revenue each hospital brings in. That’s unconscionable, and a failure of the free market in arguably the most important industry. Hospitals and canadian pharmacies would do well to get together and establish transparent and ethical best practices for pricing, because the alternative is onerous regluation to ensure they are not gouging insurance companies, government agencies, and individual patients without regard to actual costs.

May 8, 2013 ∞

DARPA and deep learning

This article by Daniela Hernandez at Wired is well-done and fascinating. However, this bit most caught my eye:

Half of the $100 million in federal funding allotted to this program will come from Darpa — more than the amount coming from the National Institutes of Health — and the Defense Department’s research arm hopes the project will “inspire new information processing architectures or new computing approaches.”

Make no mistake: the US military wants intelligent killing machines.

May 8, 2013 ∞

Delaware becomes eleventh state to approve same-sex marriage

And the steady march continues, as Delaware joins their ten predecessors in granting gay couples the basic American right to marry.

May 8, 2013 ∞

Obama May Back F.B.I. Plan to Wiretap Web Users

Charlie Savage of The New York Times:

the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not.

Concerns that this would prompt similar measures from repressive governments abroad are not overblown. If we expect foreign companies to submit to these procedures, their governments will expect US companies to do the same. I’m surprised this article doesn’t mention anything about what the Obama administration’s diplomats and international law folks think about all of this.

May 7, 2013 ∞

Air Force sexual assault prevention officer charged with sexual battery

Disgusting. Anything less than dishonorable discharge and jail time will be an insult to victims and to this country.

May 3, 2013 ∞

Now you can 3D-print a gun.

Andy Greenberg at Forbes:

Once the file is online, anyone will be able to download and print the gun in the privacy of their garage, legally or not, with no serial number, background check, or other regulatory hurdles. “You can print a lethal device,” Wilson told me last summer. “It’s kind of scary, but that’s what we’re aiming to show.”

Law student Cody Wilson has added some steel to make it detectable and lawful, and gotten the appropriate firearms manufacturing license. But that doesn’t mean the world at large will do the same when Wilson uploads the files needed to print the gun to the internet.

I often write about how technology has made the cost of copying trivial, while the laws on the books still hail from a time when the cost of copying was non-trivial. When it comes to audio and video copyright, that triviality can be economically disruptive at best, and can disturb entire industries at worst. But when it comes to weapons, that triviality to copy is downright dangerous.

May 3, 2013 ∞

Netflix launch reduces BitTorrent use

Joe Hanlon of TechRadar:

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos says that there is a correlation between the Netflix launching in a country and BitTorrent traffic slowing down in the same region.

If you stream it, they will pay.

May 2, 2013 ∞

Rhode Island legalizes same-sex marriage

The inexorable march of time sees a tenth state grant gay and lesbian people the statutory right to marry.

Those states who have yet to get on board would do well to hurry: you’re quickly running out of time to look like you were ahead of the curve in the common sense of twenty-first century civil rights.