Snapzu News: October 2015

Saturday, 31 October 2015

ESPN shuts down Grantland, effective immediately

Effective immediately we are suspending the publication of Grantland. After careful consideration, we have decided to direct our time and energy going forward to projects that we believe will have a broader and more significant impact across our enterprise. Grantland distinguished itself with quality writing, smart ideas, original thinking and fun. We are grateful to those who made it so. Bill Simmons was passionately committed to the site and proved to be...
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Man binge watching ‘The Walking Dead’ kills friend he thought was a zombie

A New Mexico man was arrested last Thursday after allegedly beating his friend to death with a microwave and a guitar, all because he thought the friend had begun to “change into a zombie.” Damon Perry, 23, told police that he had been binge-watching The Walking Dead on Netflix before the incident, according to KOB 4 Albuquerque.
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Deso Dogg, Ex-Rapper Who Joined ISIS, Is Killed by U.S. Airstrike

The German-born former rapper Deso Dogg, who abandoned his music career in 2010 and became a recruiter in Syria for the Islamic State, was killed in an airstrike this month, the Pentagon confirmed Friday. The musician, born Denis Cuspert, toured with the American performer DMX in 2006 but later abandoned rap music and became a well-known singer of nasheeds, or Islamic devotional music, in German.
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Conservatives Revolt And Say RNC Chair Reince Priebus Needs To Go

Right-wing talk radio show host Mark Levin is calling for Republican National Committee Chair (RNC) Reince Priebus' ouster.
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Russian plane 'completely destroyed' in Egypt crash

Search and rescue officer says all 224 passengers and crew on flight from Sharm el-Sheikh likely to have died in Sinai crash
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Police to be granted powers to view your internet history

UK Home Secretary Theresa May expected to announce plans to give security services powers to view web browsing history of everyone in the country
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Nearly 150 killed in deadly day of air strikes in Syria

Eighty killed in government and Russian raids in Aleppo, while at least 61 people were killed in Douma.
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Ion Engine Breakthrough Could Take Us To Mars At A Fraction Of The Fuel

A group of French physicists has optimized a type of ion thruster to significantly extend its lifetime: the new development made it sturdy enough to be able withstand a long trip into deep space. Such a thruster would require 100 million times less fuel than common thrusters that use chemical reactions to propel a spacecraft forward.
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Google Changes ‘.bro’ Filename To Avoid Accusations Of Misogyny

Google has renamed the file suffix of its new Brotli software from ‘.bro’ to ‘.br’ to avoid the potentially misogynistic overtones associated with the term. The tech giant’s new Brotli file compression software is designed to make websites load faster. After information about the new software was shared online, one poster - a Mozilla engineer - suggested that: “'bro’ has a gender problem” and “comes of[f] misogynistic and unprofessional due to the world it lives in”.
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Kim Dotcom Wants to Build an Alternate Internet Powered by Blockchains

Kim Dotcom certainly hasn’t been letting his ongoing fight against US extradition charges slow him down. On Thursday, according to Mashable, he remotely addressed a startup convention in Sydney, Australia to pitch his latest idea: an alternative internet called MegaNet. Dotcom is wanted in the US on criminal copyright infringement charges thanks to his file-hosting site Megaupload, which had a successful run until it was shuttered by the US Justice Department in 2012
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The rise and rise of pumpkin spice everything.

America is awash with pumpkin spice everything during Halloween. But when did this craze start and is it here to stay?
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Shaker Aamer released from Guantánamo Bay after 14-year detention

No 10 says no plan to detain British resident on return from imprisonment without trial in US military camp where he was beaten.
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Al Molinaro, Big Al on ‘Happy Days’ actor, dead at 96

Al Molinaro, the actor best known for playing diner owner Big Al Delvecchio on “Happy Days,” died Thursday, according to reports.
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Friday, 30 October 2015

For the future of solar, we’ve got the tech—it’s the economics, stupid

In the US, the future of solar energy will be made in California. Earlier this month, the state's governor signed legislation that commits California to obtaining half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. And to some extent, that future is now—the state's utilities are working to meet a goal of one-third renewables by 2020.
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People in Sweden are hiding cash in their microwaves because of a fascinating — and terrifying — economic experiment

Sweden is shaping up to be the first country to plunge its citizens into a fascinating — and terrifying — economic experiment: negative interest rates in a cashless society. The Swedish central bank held its benchmark interest rate at -0.35% today, the level it has been at since July. Although retail banks have yet to pass on that negative to rate to Swedish consumers, the longer it’s held there the more financial pressure there is for banks to pass the costs onto their customers.
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22 Ancient Shipwrecks Discovered Near Greek Island

Shipwrecks were the stuff of lore around the craggy coasts of Fourni, a Greek archipelago close to Turkey in the eastern Aegean Sea. By day 5, the researchers had discovered evidence of nine more sunken ships. "I think we were all shocked," said Peter Campbell, co-director of the project from the U.S.-based RPM Nautical Foundation.
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Making Insider Trading Legal

Thanks to gaping loopholes implicitly endorsed by the Supreme Court, hedge funds now essentially have a license to cheat. By Patrick Radden Keefe.
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Republicans will not air February debate on NBC

A coming US presidential debate will not air on NBC after Republicans said this week's forum on a sister network was conducted in "bad faith".
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Greater than the sum of its parts

It is rare for a new animal species to emerge in front of scientists’ eyes. But this seems to be happening in eastern North America.
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The EU just made porn filters illegal

The European Union has voted through legislation that will require all internet providers to treat online traffic “without discrimination” – effectively ending porn filters established by David Cameron. The ruling, which has been greeted with dismay by anti-porn campaigners, will come into effect by the end of the year and is part of a broader move by the EU towards “net neutrality.”
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Police Used Terrorism Powers to Seize Reporter's Laptop

British police used anti-terrorism laws to seize the computer of a reporter who has interviewed supporters of the Islamic State group, the BBC said Thursday. The broadcaster said police had obtained an order from a judge under the Terrorism Act "requiring the BBC to hand over communication between a 'Newsnight' journalist and a man in Syria who had publicly identified himself as an IS member."
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'Person of interest' named in 1989 Jacob Wetterling disappearance

An Annandale, Minn., man first questioned 26 years ago about the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling has re-emerged as a “person of interest” in a chilling abduction that has long stymied investigators and haunted the public, authorities said Thursday. Daniel James Heinrich, 52, was arrested at his home Wednesday night on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. At a news conference Thursday in Minneapolis...
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Anonymous threatens to release 1,000 names of KKK members

The hacking collective Anonymous has threatened to reveal the names of 1,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan, in a move which could cause immense embarrassment for supporters of the white supremacist organisation.
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Philadelphia police join call to boycott Quentin Tarantino movies

All 14,000 Members of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 have joined officers in New York and Los Angeles in calling for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino’s films. “Tarantino has shown through his actions that he is anti-police,” the group’s president, John McNesby, said in a statement. “Mr. Tarantino has made a good living through his films, projecting into society at large violence and respect for criminals; he it turns out also hates cops.”
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North Korea's slave labor force is growing, U.N. special rapporteur says

The number of North Korean workers enslaved abroad is growing, and many are forced to work as long as 20 hours a day while the regime embezzles hundreds of millions of dollars from their pay. Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said the growing exploitation of North Korean workers by the regime in Pyongyang "reflects the really tight financial and economic situation in the North," CNN reported.
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Dotcom's Bid to Halt Extradition Hearing Fails, Defense Begins

Efforts by Kim Dotcom's legal team to have his extradition hearing thrown out have failed today. As a result the Megaupload founder will begin his defense next week, presenting legal argument that he hopes will stop New Zealand authorities sending him to the United States. Defiant, Dotcom insists that he "won't be silenced by bullies!"
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European Union Calls For Edward Snowden Criminal Charges To Be Dropped: Will Whistleblower Find Asylum in Europe?

The European Union's Parliament voted 285 to 281 Thursday to drop charges against former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed the agency's widespread spying activities. The Parliament said that not enough has been done to protect the rights of EU citizens from mass surveillance. In a release, the Parliament urged countries to "drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently...
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Gay marriage bill signed into law in Ireland

DUBLIN, Ireland – Same-sex marriage was signed into law in Ireland on Thursday, five months after a historic referendum saw the traditionally Catholic nation become the world’s first country to vote for gay unions. In a brief statement, the president’s office said, “The Presidential Commission today signed the ‘Marriage Bill 2015′ into law,” paving the way […]
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Time off for bad prose

The makers of the Romanian edition of the board game Monopoly may want to consider altering the “Get out of jail free” card to one reading “Wrote a book in jail”. A change in the law in 2013 allows convicts to claim 30 days off their sentences for every work they publish while in prison. This has led Romanian tycoons and politicians imprisoned on corruption charges to indulge in a frenzy of scribbling. It is a system as corrupt as they are.
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At least 40 killed in missile attack on Syria’s Douma

At least 40 people were killed and about 100 wounded after Syrian government forces fired missiles
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Who owns Dumbledore – JK Rowling or the Harry Potter fans?

JK Rowling has come under fire for signing an open letter opposing a cultural boycott of Israel. The form of the complaints, and Rowling's response, tell us much about the author-fan relationship.
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Zuckerberg Vows to Stop Annoying Facebook Game Invites

A message to Facebook users who wage war on the seemingly endless stream of game invitations: help is on the way. Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the social network is finally going to do something about the constant notifications that nag users to download games and play with friends.
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Alphabet’s Stratospheric Loon Balloons to Start Serving Internet to Indonesia

The high-flying Internet balloons dreamed up by Google will get their biggest test yet in 2016.
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Turkish media denounce 'biggest crackdown on press in republic’s history'

Critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or government policies have been fired and pro-opposition media offices raided in run-up to elections
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Dance-off defuses confrontation between US police, teenagers

A police officer defuses a confrontation between teenagers in Washington DC not by force, but by dance.
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'1st Hardware Store in Space': Commercial 3D Printer Launching in 2016

California-based startup Made In Space is partnering with home-improvement giant Lowe's to launch a commercial 3D printer to the International Space Station (ISS) early next year, representatives of both companies announced today
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The home-chefs causing panic in restaurants

Restaurant owners in Paris say they could be put out of business by chefs who are catering for diners in their own homes.
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This Is Not a Game: How SXSW Turned GamerGate Abuse Into a Spectator Sport

Citing ‘violent threats,’ SXSW canceled a panel about harassment in games, as well as a pro-GamerGate panel that cropped up as a counterpunch. But the story is much stranger than that. By Arthur Chu.
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Thursday, 29 October 2015

Texas seventh grader says teacher told class: ‘God is a myth’

A seventh grade student in Texas reported her teacher to district officials for allegedly instructing students that God is a “myth.” In a five-minute, tape-recorded statement to the Katy school board, Jordan Wooley, 12, a student at West Memorial Junior High School, says her reading teacher was leading students in an exercise designed to distinguish between statements that are an”opinion,” a “factual claim” or a “commonplace assertion,” according to KTRK-TV, the ABC affiliate in Houston.
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Cancer-fighting viruses win approval

An engineered herpesvirus that provokes an immune response against cancer has become the first treatment of its kind to be approved for use in the United States, paving the way for a long-awaited class of therapies. On 27 October, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a genetically engineered virus called talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) to treat advanced melanoma. Four days earlier, advisers to the European Medicines Agency had endorsed the drug.
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Google’s Project Loon internet balloons to circle [part of the] Earth

Google says it will soon have a string of 300 internet-beaming balloons circling the Earth, as three Indonesian firms agree to join its trials. By Leo Kelion.
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Singpost Is Developing A Futuristic Shopping Mall To House Online Retailers

Weeks after revealing plans to use drones to deliver the mail, Singpost — Singapore’s postal service provider — has unveiled another futuristic e-commerce concept, a mall that combines online and offline shopping together under one roof. The mall (artist’s impressive above) will be located at Singapore Post Centre (SPC) and is scheduled to be completed by mid-2017. The company said it would feature 25,000 square meters of retail space spread across five levels.
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Aquafina to say it comes from same source as tap water

The label on Aquafina water bottles will soon be changed to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water, the brand's owner PepsiCo said Friday. A group called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices. Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled "P.W.S." The new labels will spell out "public water source."
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Phil Collins Plotting Comeback: 'I Am No Longer Retired'

Sitting in the master bedroom of his Miami Beach mansion just five days after undergoing major back surgery, Phil Collins is still weak and in no small amount of pain. But when the conversation for an upcoming My Life in 15 Songs feature turns to his future plans, he grows animated and excited. "I'm no longer officially retired," he says. "The horse is out of the stable and I'm raring to go."
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MtGox CEO spent embezzled funds on prostitutes

The head of collapsed Bitcoin exchange MtGox was facing fresh embezzlement charges Wednesday, as Japanese media said some of the allegedly stolen funds were spent on prostitutes. Tokyo police said they had arrested France-born Mark Karpeles, 30, for moving 20 million yen ($166,000) in client money to his bank account, as he faces fraud allegations over the disappearance of hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-worth of the virtual currency.
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Unprotected license plate surveillance cameras let anyone with a web browser tune in

Automated license plate recognition systems, also known as ALPR or simply LPR systems, have become increasingly popular — and controversial — tools for law enforcement in recent years. The systems can automatically photograph and record data on license plates in real time, drawing the ire of privacy advocates like those at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has just released information on security vulnerabilities in ALPR systems across the country.
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Police are searching black drivers more often, but finding more illegal stuff with white drivers

For years, police records have shown that black drivers tend to be less likely than white drivers to turn up with guns or drugs when searched at traffic stops. At the same time, black drivers are three times more likely than white drivers to be subjected to these searches, according to a 2013 federal survey. You might object (or not) to the idea of racial profiling — officers taking race into account when determining whether to stop and scrutinize someone.
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