Leah sez,

Bespoke troublemakers, the Space Hijackers, have announced that they are the Official Protesters of the London 2012 Olympic Games. To this end, they've launched a site where you can register for tickets for the official protests. They have also outlined the top ten reasons why the Olympics are worth protesting against.

A spokesperson said "accept no imitation, we are the Official Protesters. We shall be taking steps to ensure no unauthorised protest occurs around the London 2012 Olympic Games".

The Space Hijackers stress that LOCOG, the IoC and the ODA should expect protest wherever Olympic legislation and regulation is applicable and enforced. An international network of Olympic protesters have partnered under the Protest London 2012 umbrella and are planning as invasive a campaign as the Olympic Games themselves. However, only those groups authorised by the Official Protesters of the London 2012 Olympic Games will be allowed to express dissent.

Disclaimer: "Official Protesters", "Official Protester", "Official Protest", "Protest", "The Space Hijackers", "Space Hijackers", "Spacehijackers", "Space", "Hijacker" and "Hijackers" are protected under trademark and copyright. Unauthorised use without express written consent from the Official Protesters of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Some background: as part of its campaign to win the games, the UK promised the International Olympic Committee that it would extend extraordinary privileges to it and its corporate partners. It's a criminal offense to use "London" and "2012" or "2012" and "Games" in a commercial context without authorisation. Yes, criminal: you can go to gaol for putting up a pub signboard that says "Watch the Olympic Games here today!" Parliament's Olympic lickspittles also delivered a law that gives the cops the power to enter your private home and remove anti-Olympics posters. And there are 10,000 private security guards on-site who insist that you're not allowed to stand on public land and take pictures, despite assurances from the government and police that they've been trained and briefed.

Here's an earlier Space Hijackers action: "Life Neutral" certification for arms dealers.

Saw this at the beginning of this week’s Frame Rate show on TWIT. It’s from Tom Scott.

It’s all about the FUD.

The guy who convinced the plotters to blow up a big bridge, led them to the arms merchant, and drove the team to the bomb site was an FBI informant. The merchant was an FBI agent. The bomb, of course, was a dud. And the arrest was part of a pattern of entrapment by federal law enforcement since September 11, 2001, not of terrorist suspects, but of young men federal agents have had to talk into embracing violence in the first place. One of the Cleveland arrestees, Connor Stevens, complained to his sister of feeling “very pressured” by the guy who turned out to be an informant and was recorded in 2011 rejecting property destruction: “We’re in it for the long haul and those kind of tactics just don’t cut it,” he said. “And it’s actually harder to be non-violent than it is to do stuff like that.” Though when Cleveland’s NEWS Channel 5 broadcast that footage, they headlined it “Accused Bomb Plot Suspect Caught on Camera Talking Violence.”

In all these law enforcement schemes the alleged terrorists masterminds end up seeming, when the full story comes out, unable to terrorize their way out of a paper bag without law enforcement tutelage.
[...]
Instead, [the FBI is] arrogating to themselves a downright Orwellian power – the power to deploy the might of the State to shape a fundamental narrative about which ideas Americans must be most scared of, and which ones they should not fear much at all, independent of the relative objective dangerousness of the people who hold those ideas.

(AFP) – 1 day ago

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter chief Dick Costolo met on Friday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Internet age technologies play growing roles in world affairs.

Pleasure to meet with Secretary Clinton and the @statedept team today,” Costolo said in a “tweet” he fired off at the popular one-to-many text messaging service.

San Francisco-based Twitter did not provide details of what Costolo discussed with Clinton during their meeting in Wasington, D.C.

Twitter has become a powerful tool for political activists around the world, giving people a way to coordinate protests and quickly spread word of setbacks, victories or other developments in campaigns.

The US State Department in February held its first Twitter briefing in Spanish, as part of its policy of using new social media to reach out to the international community.

The State Department has Twitter feeds in 11 languages: English, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, Farsi, French, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu.

“These social media accounts are conduits for the US Department of State to inform and engage individuals around the world on American foreign policy issues,” the department has publicly stated.

“They also support the department’s 21st Century Statecraft efforts, complementing traditional foreign policy by harnessing the digital networks and technologies of an interconnected world,” it added.

The Times-Picayune reports on Louisiana's prison ecosystem -- and the perverse incentives for sheriffs to keep inmate numbers high:

Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's.

The hidden engine behind the state's well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.

Several homegrown private prison companies command a slice of the market. But in a uniquely Louisiana twist, most prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous sway in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concordia. A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations.

If the inmate count dips, sheriffs bleed money. Their constituents lose jobs. The prison lobby ensures this does not happen by thwarting nearly every reform that could result in fewer people behind bars.

The article has some excellent infographics, including one that shows world and state incarceration rates.

(HT: Katherine Wells)

(Photo: Ken Mayer)

The Times-Picayune reports on Louisiana’s prison ecosystem — and the perverse incentives for sheriffs to keep inmate numbers high:

Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.

The hidden engine behind the state’s well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.

Several homegrown private prison companies command a slice of the market. But in a uniquely Louisiana twist, most prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous sway in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concordia. A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations.

If the inmate count dips, sheriffs bleed money. Their constituents lose jobs. The prison lobby ensures this does not happen by thwarting nearly every reform that could result in fewer people behind bars.

The article has some excellent infographics, including one that shows world and state incarceration rates.

(HT: Katherine Wells)

1. Is a new cut of steak worthy of a patent? (HT: Eric M. Jones)
2. First there were metrosexuals; now meet the urban datasexual. (HT: Jeff Bladt)
3. Is flopping a problem in the NBA?
4. Fighter pilot Mary Cummings explains robotic crop dusting.
5. Corporate takeovers: they trim the fat, including corporate jets.
6. Does the ability to feel guilt make for great leaders?
7. Evidence that director John Waters still hitchhikes.

1. Is a new cut of steak worthy of a patent? (HT: Eric M. Jones)
2. First there were metrosexuals; now meet the urban datasexual. (HT: Jeff Bladt)
3. Is flopping a problem in the NBA?
4. Fighter pilot Mary Cummings explains robotic crop dusting.
5. Corporate takeovers: they trim the fat, including corporate jets.
6. Does the ability to feel guilt make for great leaders?
7. Evidence that director John Waters still hitchhikes.

Are you bummed out that you might have to postpone retirement for financial reasons?

Well, there may be a silver lining: it looks like retirement may be bad for your health. That's the topic of our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast, "Retirement Kills." (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen via the media player above, or read the transcript below.)

The Great Recession has put a lot of retirement plans on hold, often at the behest of governments who can’t afford to pay pensions. Germany, the U.K., and France have all upped their retirement ages.  And the U.S. is seeing a lot more older workers as well. Lisa Boily of the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that people 55 and older are expected to represent 25 percent of the labor force by 2020.

Part of this is simple demographics -- the graying of the baby boom -- but Americans are also working longer.

Are you bummed out that you might have to postpone retirement for financial reasons?

Well, there may be a silver lining: it looks like retirement may be bad for your health. That’s the topic of our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast, “Retirement Kills.” (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen via the media player above, or read the transcript below.)

The Great Recession has put a lot of retirement plans on hold, often at the behest of governments who can’t afford to pay pensions. Germany, the U.K., and France have all upped their retirement ages.  And the U.S. is seeing a lot more older workers as well. Lisa Boily of the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that people 55 and older are expected to represent 25 percent of the labor force by 2020.

Part of this is simple demographics — the graying of the baby boom — but Americans are also working longer. In fact, the share of workers over 65 is the highest it’s been in more than 50 years:

This trend may depress you, but consider the upside. The economist Josef Zweimuller, at the University of Zurich, recently co-authored a study which found that early retirement, as much as we may crave it, seems to be bad for our health:

“[A]mong blue-collar workers, we see that workers who retire earlier have a higher mortality rates and these effects are pretty large.”

The study showed that for every extra year of early retirement, workers lost about two months of life expectancy. Nor is this the first study to show a strong relationship between early retirement and earlier death.

There’s much more to hear on the subject in the podcast, including observations from University of Florida psychologist Mo Wang, who studies retirement, and Steve Levitt, who’s got his own plan to retire and keep working at the same time.

Have you been wondering what the office of former Dewey chairman Steven Davis looked like? We have pictures for your perusal.

Continue reading »

Follow Above the Law on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

Tags: 1301 Avenue of the Americas, 1301 Sixth Avenue, Biglaw, Calyon Building, Corner Offices, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Joel Sanders, Lawyerly Lairs, Le Corbusier, Partner Issues, Photography, Photos, Pictures, Property Group Partners, Real Estate, Stephen Dicarmine, Steve DiCarmine, Steven Davis, Steven H. Davis

So we’re running the world’s first global awards, celebrating excellence in data visualizations, infographics and information art. Yeah!

Kind sponsors Kantar have laid $30,000 on the table to reward the winners and celebrate the field.

Who are the judges?

Excitingly, we’re super-honoured to welcome Brian Eno to our judging panel. He joins senior curator at the MoMA Paola Antonelli, The Guardian Datablog’s editor Simon Rogers and um, myself David McCandless.

Here’s the complete roll call. See their bios and details.

Yes, the final judge is you! We’ll be inviting you and the online infoviz community at large to vote on entries and become a single ‘meta-judge’ on our panel.

Who can enter?

It’s open to all comers – pro and ‘amateur’, individual, team or studio, media, art, corporate – whatever, where ever. This is a truly global contest.

Long- and short-listed entries will be exhibited here and on the awards site. So your work will be seen by many, many eyes. Winners will win cash prizes, a unique trophy and mondo kudos.

Where and when to enter

So if you’re making viral infographics, vizzing statistics, campaigning with data journalism, rendering geo-data, designing your company’s internal processes – submit your entry today. It costs just $10 to enter. That means it won’t cost a chunk to have your work seen and lauded.

Closing date: 31st May 2012.
Long list: 25th June 2012.
Short list: 9th July 2012.
Winners: by 31st July 2012.

Categories and prizes

Somewhat inevitably here’s an information graphic that explains all the categories and prizes.

Submit your entry today. Best of luck!

A brain-blending categorisation and visualisation of errors and manipulations of rhetoric and logical thinking. How many do you use?

The word ‘rhetological’ is made up. Just so I can munge two types of entity: rhetorical techniques and logical fallacies.

Both are used heavily by institutional powers – governments, religions, political parties, across the entire spectrum to sway opinion, confuse and obfuscate. And, unfortunately, we internalise them, like bad habits, into our own decision-making and mental processes.

How many you recognise? Or use?

UPDATE 11th April: We now have a French version – and printable French PDF to download. Thanks to Gilles Peyroux!

appeal to method

This is an attempt to elucidate and name a few of the most common fallacies. I’ve drawn from the many, great collections and lists out there online (see the sources below).

Quite a few suffer from being over-abstract and heavily philosophical. Some have difficult-to-grasp examples. Sometimes these fallacies are so simple, or basic maybe, that they’re actually hard to grasp mentally. You need examples.

So I’ve condensed all the definitions and tried to write them in the plainest of plain English. Also, I’ve roved for everyday, topical examples to give a sense of each fallacy and technique. As a team, we also created little ‘roadsigns’ to give you a visual-conceptual flavour of each.

In philosophy, there are some formal ways of categorising fallacies. I ignored those. Mostly, I admit, because I didn’t understand them. Instead I went for more intuitive groupings. That may not be canonical. Sorry!

I think it works though. Here’s an example. The most senior Catholic bishop here in the UK recently outlined his argument against same-sex marriage. Here’s our rhetological matrix applied to his speech.

appeal to your brain

If you want to play Rhetological Bingo during political speeches or at work feel free to instantly download a quick-ref, hi-res PDF.

It also occurred to me as I uploaded the final, that the imagery could work very well in HTML. And it’d be easy to translate. If anyone can help me with that, please get in touch.

As ever, we welcome your feedback and corrections. We’ve probably suppressed a few key fallacies. Confused cause & effect. Maybe even garbled our definitions. Help us out!

Fancy seeing the world’s first 3D projection-mapped infographic animations?

Along with ad agency DDB London and the Financial Times, we helped gather data and shape some of the stories for three short infographic films which will be projection-mapped on the inside of Grand Central Station in New York! Go see!

(Projection-mapping throws a 3D model of an environment or space back on itself in order to pull off some incredible visual effects).

I’ve not seen the finished films yet. They’ll be unveiled tomorrow (Tuesday 27th March) and run continuously for three days. Hashtag #FTGW. But project-mapping ninjas the Klip Collective have an incredible reputation for large scale awesomeness.

There’s a preview (and a picture of me doing Karate) running at http://www.ft.com/graphicworld.

This is the age of thinking thermostats and, not to be outdone by a well-known circular model, hardware startup Ecobee has released the Smart Si. It is a smart thermostat with small color screen and a web interface so temperature wonks can update their heating models on the fly.

The Smart Si is not quite as sleek as the Nest but offers more accessible settings – think of this as the Linux to Nest’s OS X. The web interface allows you to see your home’s current status, set a vacation profile, and view reports on your system’s performance including HVAC and heater usage.

The system pulls in weather alerts as well as alarms from your home system and you can chart and graph all of your performance parameters. Arguably, I doubt many will get very intense with this stuff, but it’s definitely available.

Ecobee has been around since 2007 and the introduced one of the first Wi-Fi-enabled thermostates. This is their effort at building a high-end thermostat but the company has plenty of experience in the space. The company also recently announced wireless Smart Plugs that allow you to control electronics in your house using the ZigBee networking standard.

The Smart Si costs $220 and is available now for pre-order.

Product Page

HP is reportedly going to be announcing massive layoffs next Wednesday. Conflicting reports state somewhere between 25K and 30K jobs, between 7% and 8% of HP’s global workforce, could be eliminated in an effort to absorb losses from decreasing demand for the company’s products and services. The cuts could happen over the next year, rather than a mass layoff, according to AllThingsD who also state that the total number is still undecided.

Wall Street is reacting positively to the news. HP’s stock price dropped shortly after the news but quickly recovered and started climbing with word of the restructuring. During the writing of this post, the stock price dropped slightly but is still up for the day.

If true, this is the latest of new CEO Meg Whitman’s drastic changes within HP. When she took over for Leo Apotheker, she nearly immediately announced that HP would not spin-off its PC division, the Personal Systems Group, as Apotheker once considered. Instead, Whitman’s team combined the PSG with the profitable Imaging and Printing Group.

The layoffs will reportedly be announced alongside HP’s quarterly earnings. Whitman will, at least per AllThingsD, deem the layoffs as necessary to make much-needed investments. Rather than just cutting people, the company will cut its workforce and then reinvest across the company.

This comes as HP is struggling to regain its dominant position in the PC and services world. While still on top per the numbers, competitors, including Apple, are racing forward with hot products. This is something that Whitman previously acknowledged to the company, predicting that Apple might surpass HP this year, but 2013 will be the year HP employees can once again celebrate — except for the 30K about to get pink slipped.

Purple Ferdinand… the name alone instantly sparks an interest, followed by an extremely quirky image displaying a talented young lady with culture, personalty and the slight edge of being different. At 23 yrs of age East Londoner Purple Ferdinand introduces herself as a new artist to the UK music scene, with the release of her acoustic promo single ‘Beautiful Anomaly.’ With such soft and tranquil British vocals, sharing heartfelt poetic lyrics over the soothing sound of a ukuele – I immediately took a liking to this new singer/songwriter – an individual clearly being herself and showcasing her talents in the truest form. The song is absolutely amazing and not only is she talented by mouth – Purple also captured a talent with her hands having tattooed the likes of Ed Sheeran and SBTV’s Jamal Edwards. With all the inked art and piercings displayed on her very own personal canvas, it’s not at all a surprise to know that the newcomer artist is also a well known tattooist however, the vocals she presented were not expected at all.

Check out the video for ‘Beautiful Anomaly’ and let us know what you think.

Signed, Sabrina Sarpong

Its been a minute since we have heard some new material from John West, but that ends today as he drops off his new track “Nobody”. The slowed down, smoothed out track finds Mr. West proclaiming to his lady, that ‘nobody love me like you do”.

The track showcases John’s vocal abilities and range; and dude has got some range. The piano driven track is a perfect sound bed for John West’s vocals to lay. Check out the track after the jump and let us know what you think.

Signed, Jesse James

Well, we enjoy more than our share of cupcakes at stupidDOPE headquarters and seeing this recipe for a margarita cupcake today in my web travels was a treat.  The Tide and Thyme blog’s recipe for Margarita Cupcakes require…

Ingredients

Cupcake batter:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 sticks room temp unsalted butter.
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs, at room temp
• 3 limes, zested and juiced
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup tequila

Tequila-Lime Buttercream:

• 2 cups sugar
• 8 egg whites
• 3 sticks butter, room temperature
• 2 1/2 Tbsp lime juice
• 2 Tbsp Tequila
• lime zest and wedges, for topping
• Sea salt for garnish

Preheat oven to 325 and prepare muffin tins with liners or non stick spray.  Next, whisk flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside, then cream butter and sugar on a high until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time blending each well, then add lime zest, lime juice, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients in three batches, alternating with the buttermilk in two batches. Mix on low until slightly incorporated. Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full and bake for 25 minutes or until done, rotating the pans mid bake.  Cool cupcakes in the pans and brush the tops with tequila while warm.

For the frosting, whisk the sugar and egg whites together until 160 degrees on your candy thermometer.  Next use a stand mixer to whisk the mixture until cooled for about 10 minutes until stiff and glossy.  Using the paddle mixer, beat in one tbsp of butter at a time on medium. The might look curdled but keep beating, it will pull back together. Increase mixer speed to high and add lime juice and 2 Tbsp tequila. Beat until the frosting is smooth and fluffy. Finally, frost your cooled cupcakes with the buttercream as desired.  Garnish with lime zest,  lime slices, and sea salt to complete a delicious cupcake.  Be sure to check out more recipes from Laura at Tide and Thyme.

Signed, LeVar Thomas

The Facebook IPO is the most important IPO to hit the stock market in …..forever. Not because of its size in dollars. Not because of the gap up it may experience in its first day of trading. Nope. Its the most important IPO ever because:

1. It could lead to individual retail investors coming back into the market.
For the first time in a long time I had someone ask me what I thought about an IPO. THey wanted to know if they should buy Facebook at its IPO.

If lots of individual, retail investors do buy into Facebook and they make money at it, that could lead to individual retail investors coming back into the market. Something that individuals smartly have avoided for the last several years.

Retail buyers making money would be great for the market..

or would it ?

2. High Frequency Traders LOVE RETAIL INVESTORS.
Facebook will be a highly liquid name. Perfect for High Frequency/Algorithmic Traders (HFTA). If Facebook is a huge draw for individual retail investors, HFTA Traders will see them as lambs waiting to be slaughtered. They will feast on the unwashed, unsophisticated mass of retail buyers dashing into Facebook. THey will pray that the stock skyrockets and stories of individuals making out like bandits are spread throughout the media. They will attack this stock like a pack of wolves.

What happens from there is anyone’s guess. But I can tell you that no one is hoping for an explosion in the price of Facebook more than High Frequency/Algorithmic traders.

Facebook could be the most important IPO in the history.

But not for the reasons you think..

Some folks have regular drinks they pair with cigars. When I enjoy a stogie, I like to switch it up a bit between scotch, rum, bourbon and, most recently, beer.

I’ll drink most of these with cigars, but to be honest, I’m not a regular bourbon drinker. My first real foray into the whisky world was scotch, mostly thanks to Jason Falls, and I’ve pretty much stuck with that. So when the folks at Four Roses offered me a sample of their Single Barrel bourbon, I saw it as an opportunity to expand my whisky horizons. (Or, in this case, whiskey.)

First off, some background on the Four Roses Single Barrel: it’s a winner, several times over, of the WHISKY MAGAZINE World Whiskies Award in the “Whiskey: No age” category. Four Roses Distillery, one of Kentucky’s largest distilleries, is owned by Kirin Brewing Company. My local liquor store, Binny’s Beverage Depot, prices it at $38.99, which is slightly more than Basil Hayden. And it packs a bit of a punch, at 50% ABV

While CigarJack is a cigar blog, I decided to forego the stogie while sampling this bourbon. (Forgive me, o cigar gods and fellow cigar bloggers!)

The Nose: Four Roses has a layered scent; the vanilla was strong, but not overpowering, and gave way to honey and a bit of spice.

How it Tasted: On the palate, the sweetness is balanced by notes of licorice, and honey.

The Finish Line: A long, great, well-rounded, sweet and spicy finish.

Overall: A worthwhile companion during an episode of “Justified.” Raylan Givens would be proud. Buy, and don’t look back.

Sponsored By: Cigarmony.com Get 5% Off Your Order By Using The Promo Code “CJ2010″

Related Posts

• Cigar Review: Cuvée 151 Robusto
• Cigar Review: CAO LX2 Robusto
• Cigar and Bourbon Manners
• A Brief Guide To Scotch For Beginners
• What will you be smoking on Christmas?

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

2HD have released the newest episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Links: HOMEPAGE – TV.com

Jimmy.Kimmel.2012.05.17.Matthew.Morrison.HDTV.x264-2HD
x264 | AAC VBR | 360MB
NTi – SiNGLE FiLE DOWNLOAD

more at RLSLOG.net

Usenet is a not so popular method of obtaining new scene releases, but it’s actually one of the faster and more convenient. All you need is a NZB file, which is often linked with new posts here at Releaselog (or you can search the files directly as well). There are virtually hundreds of different Usenet providers, but if you want to try this service for the first time and enjoy some advanced functions, Binverse is a good place to start.

Binverse offers a completely FREE 14-day trial, to try their service. The service offers two methods of downloads – unlimited downloads capped at 1 Mbps or Full speed downloads with data cap of 30 GB a month. All you need to activate the free 14-day trial is to register and submit your credit card or PayPal details. You can cancel the service at anytime before the end of trial without being charged, or you can continue paying $14.99 a month for the service afterwards.

With Binverse, you can access over 5 new Terabytes per day of new files and messages. Binverse will also provide you with a special Usenet client with features as Usenet search, built in RAR / PAR support for dealing with large compressed files, intergrated chat, email alerts and many more. There’s really nothing to lose, if you won’t like it, you can just cancel it.

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

aAF have released a new episode of “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”.

Links: Homepage – TV.com

Jimmy.Fallon.2012.05.17.Arsenio.Hall.HDTV.x264-aAF
x264 | AAC VBR | 424.60 MB
NTi – NETLOAD | FiLEREACTOR

more at RLSLOG.net

Photo: ToastyKen/Flickr

LOS ANGELES — Federal regulators considered testimony Wednesday here at UCLA on whether to allow citizens and filmmakers to legally crack DVD encryption meant to protect them from being copied.

Filmmakers, video mixers and others have petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office for the ability to continue to use DVD decryption tools to copy short clips of DVDs from motion pictures to put into their own films. The issue isn’t whether they have a fair-use right to the material, but whether they can utilize decrypting tools to make the best reproduction for filmmaking purposes.

Another proposal for the first time calls for the public at large to be authorized to make copies of their own DVDs without breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which makes it unlawful to circumvent encryption technologies in items that you buy.

Earlier in the day, here at UCLA Law School, regulators held a hearing as part of its deliberations over whether it will continue to allow Americans to jailbreak their mobile phones, and whether they will expand that right to cover tablets and videogame consoles. Jailbreaking and rooting are techniques used to get past manufacturer-installed roadblocks that prevent users from having full control over their devices.

Every three years, the U.S. Copyright Office entertains requests to create temporary loopholes in the law that outlaws the circumvention of encryption technologies. The afternoon public hearing largely focused on the s0-called CSS that must be cracked to make a copy of a DVD. All DMCA exemptions, which are proposed by the public, expire in three years and must be reauthorized by the Copyright Office.

Clarissa Weirick, the general counsel of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment, testified against all the decryption measures.

“If we didn’t have access controls, there might be the same kind of mass piracy we’ve seen with unprotected music,” Weirick said about the copying of DVDs, a proposal put forth by digital rights group Public Knowledge, which did not attend the hearing.

Weirick, a representative from Fox and the major motion picture studios under the Motion Picture Association of America opposed all the measures proposed in the afternoon public hearing, which included about 2 dozen members of the public in attendance.

They said that there is no need to grant the public the right to make copies of their DVDs because the studios are streaming and selling movies online now, and that the public does not own the movies they buy on DVDs. They own the license to play it on a DVD, they argued.

And when it comes to cracking encryption to make snippets out of films to be put in new films, the industry opposed reauthorizing the cracking of the DVD encryption for that purpose. The industry testified that filmmakers instead can use screen-capturing software or they can license the clips from the studios.

Filmmakers oppose that because of the poor quality of screen-capture reproduction.

(Screen-capturing does not crack encryption because it copies what is shown on a computer screen.)

Filmmaker Laurence Thrush testified that screen-capturing software turns clips into “mush.”

“The fabric of reality is very important to these projects,” he testified.

Jonathan McIntosh, a remix artist, was also asking the regulators to allow him to bypass circumvention that prevents the copying of streamed movies, so that he may use the best picture quality available of the snippets he places in his own films. Doing so, he said, helps “to engage in a healthy public debate.”

He said he has a “zero budget” when it comes to paying for a license, some of which carry clauses that forbid filmmakers from disparaging the movie.

Maria Pallante, the register of copyrights, wondered aloud:

“But I think we’ve heard the market is changing rapidly. Licensing options are changing. Conceivably even with a budget of zero, permission might be possible,” she said.

Corynne McSherry, the intellectual property coordinator with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Pallante and other top-ranking lawyers in the U.S. Copyright Office here that granting the exemptions at issue is “not going to help pirates,” so they must be granted.

Exemptions are allotted by the Copyright Office if regulators are convinced consumers are “adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing use due to the prohibition on circumvention.”

Approved exemptions by the Copyright Office must be also be sanctioned by the Librarian of Congress, currently James Billington. Regulators are not expected to make any approvals until later this year, at a date not yet disclosed.

Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

LOS ANGELES — To jailbreak or not to jailbreak? That was the question on everybody’s mind Thursday as copyright regulators, content creators and digital rights groups battled over whether Americans should have the right to tinker with the devices that they buy.

The U.S. Copyright Office held the hearing Thursday as part of its deliberations over whether it will continue to allow Americans to jailbreak their mobile phones, and whether they will expand that right to cover tablets and videogame consoles. Jailbreaking and rooting are techniques used to get past manufacturer-installed roadblocks that prevent users from having full control over their devices. In the case of the iPhone, jailbreaking allows users to run applications not approved by Apple.

Every three years, the U.S. Copyright Office entertains requests to create temporary loopholes in the law that makes it unlawful to circumvent encryption technologies in items that you buy. It’s that time again, the fifth go-around following the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s 1998 passage.

“This is essentially like letting consumers open the hoods of their own cars,” said Marcia Hofmann, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is asking for the hardware exemptions.

About two dozen exemptions have been granted since the DMCA’s passage. They are allotted by the Copyright Office if regulators are convinced consumers are “adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing use due to the prohibition on circumvention.”

The office granted the exemption for mobile phones in 2010, which makes it set to expire next year.

Later in the day, here at the UCLA School of Law, the public hearing will shift to a discussion of cracking of the CSS encryption on motion picture DVDs.

It’s all part of a long-running showdown between the big copyright holders who view the world as divided into creators and consumers, and a coalition of librarians, digital rights groups, disability activists and hackers who seek to preserve a world where people can repurpose, upgrade and build upon the devices and media they legally buy, just as hackers, painters and culture jammers have done for decades before the DMCA.

EFF staff attorney Marcia Hoffman. Photo: redtimmy/Flickr

Christian Genetski, general counsel of the Entertainment Software Association, told the Copyright Office, whose panelists included its top attorneys and Maria Pallante, the register of copyrights, that freeing Americans to bypass access controls on videogame consoles would decimate the gaming business.

“It will gut videogame consoles’ piracy protections,” he said. “We’re here today because our copyright interests are at stake.”

Allowing such jailbreaking, Hofmann countered, would allow the so-called homebrew community of game developers to play their games on the machines, while also allowing researchers to use the consoles like computers in the furtherance of science.

But the regulators were not clear whether the videogame hack was necessary. They suggested scientists could use computers for their research, and homebrew gamers can play those, too, on their computers.

Robert Kasunic, deputy general counsel of the Copyright Office, suggested that the benefits don’t outweigh the tradeoffs to piracy.

“How do you balance, for instance, the use of being able to put Pong on a homebrew system with the numbers we are aware of in terms of videogame piracy?” he asked, noting that millions of videogames are already being shared without authorization on The Pirate Bay.

David Carson, the office’s general counsel, asked Hofmann whether Sony, the maker of the PlayStation, has ever denied a researcher who had asked to re-enable access to Linux that the PlayStation once provided.

“I have not heard of any instances of that,” Hofmann replied.

Genetski said the risk was too great. Authorizing videogame-console hacking would foster an even greater videogame pirating community, he argued.

For research and playing homebrewed games, he said, “Clearly, there is an alternative platform that is available.”

All DMCA exemptions, which are proposed by the public, expire every three years and must be reauthorized by the Copyright Office. The Copyright Office’s approved exemptions must then be approved by the Librarian of Congress, currently James Billington.

Regulators are not expected to make any approvals until later this year, at a date not yet disclosed.

But when it came to leaving intact the office’s 2010 decision authorizing smartphone jailbreaking — to acquire root access to the phone — the regulators appeared to believe phone users have a fair use right to do so, to enable them to run apps of their choice.

“Developers need the access to produce better-quality applications. Can you respond to that?” Pallante asked Steve Metalitz, who represented the Business Software Alliance, the motion picture studios and recording artists.

“The exemption should be limited to that,” Metalitz said.

He added that regulators should not dictate to American companies like Apple what apps they should allow on their phones.

“There is a no god-given right to sell a Chevy at Ford dealers,” he said.

Jay Freeman, the founder of Cydia, the alternative Apple app store for jailbroken iOS devices, said in the last year alone, 54 million unique Apple devices have downloaded his store. Freeman did not testify, but was in the audience of less than two dozen onlookers.

He noted that during the last exemption go-around, Apple staunchly protested, saying authorizing jailbreaking would ruin its business model, which at the time included 1 billion Apple-approved app downloads.

Today, more than 25 billion apps have been downloaded from Apple’s app store, and its stock is skyrocketing. Apple, which had also claimed jailbreaking would open cell towers to sabotage, was nowhere in sight at today’s hearing.

“Apple just doesn’t seem to care,” Freeman said of the latest jailbreaking proposal.

Still, the regulators said they needed more information about authorizing, for the first time, the ability to jailbreak tablets, despite the widespread ability for the public to already do so via the Dev-Team for Apple’s devices and a motley crew of other Android rooting teams.

For starters, the regulators noted that e-readers are included in the EFF’s tablet proposal.

Carson suggested that allowing the jailbreaking of a Nook or Kindle, or other “single-purpose” device, “might jeopardize” the copyrighted material on those devices.

“There are some very important copyright concerns that might be militating against it,” he said.

It's no secret that rap has been a male-dominated sport, but you can't forget the ladies.

Hollywood star Will Smith returned to his hip-hop roots this week when he rapped the theme tune from his breakthrough show The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. The actor, who first found fame in hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, was being interviewed alongside singer/songwriter Gary Barlow for Graham Norton's TV chat show when the pair teamed ... (more)

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This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

Scene group AMIABLE released a 720p BlurayRip of Playing By Heart, directed by Willard Carroll, starring Angelina Jolie, Gillian Anderson, Ellen Burstyn and Sean Connery. Enjoy!

Plot: Eleven articulate people work through affairs of the heart in L.A. Paul produces Hannah’s TV cooking show, and they must move beyond gentle barbs when she wants to know about an affair of his years ago. Mark is dying of AIDS, and his mother comes to his bedside: they must talk truthfully. Men have scalded Meredith so she rebuffs Trent’s charm, but he persists. The trendy, prolix Joan tries to pull the solitary Keenan into her orbit: why is he reluctant? An adulterous couple meet at hotels for evening sex, but she is unwilling for the relationship to grow. Hugh tells tall tales, usually tragic, to women in bars. By the week’s end, their parallel stories converge.

Genre: Comedy | Drama | Romance
IMDB Rating: 7.0/10 from 12,179 users
Directed by: Willard Carroll
Starring: Gillian Anderson, Ellen Burstyn and Sean Connery

Release Name: Playing.By.Heart.1998.720p.BluRay.X264-AMIABLE
Size: 4480mb
Video: x264 : 1280×656, 23.976 fps
Audio: English DTS 768k
Runtime: 02:00:44

Links: iMDB – Trailer – TinySubs
NFO: Here
Torrent: NewTorrents
Download: Netload

more at RLSLOG.net

Usenet is a not so popular method of obtaining new scene releases, but it’s actually one of the faster and more convenient. All you need is a NZB file, which is often linked with new posts here at Releaselog (or you can search the files directly as well). There are virtually hundreds of different Usenet providers, but if you want to try this service for the first time and enjoy some advanced functions, Binverse is a good place to start.

Binverse offers a completely FREE 14-day trial, to try their service. The service offers two methods of downloads – unlimited downloads capped at 1 Mbps or Full speed downloads with data cap of 30 GB a month. All you need to activate the free 14-day trial is to register and submit your credit card or PayPal details. You can cancel the service at anytime before the end of trial without being charged, or you can continue paying $14.99 a month for the service afterwards.

With Binverse, you can access over 5 new Terabytes per day of new files and messages. Binverse will also provide you with a special Usenet client with features as Usenet search, built in RAR / PAR support for dealing with large compressed files, intergrated chat, email alerts and many more. There’s really nothing to lose, if you won’t like it, you can just cancel it.

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

The long wait is over. After the DVDRip by scene, here’s group SPARKS with the 720p bluray of John Carter. The movie has a more than decent IMDB rating and I’m certainly looking forward to it. I’m sure there are many others that are, too!

Plot: From filmmaker Andrew Stanton comes John Carter-a sweeping action-adventure set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars). John Carter is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose highly imaginative adventures served as inspiration for many filmmakers, both past and present. The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

Genre: Action | Adventure | Fantasy
IMDB rating: 7/10
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins and Willem Dafoe

Release Name: John.Carter.2012.720p.BluRay.x264-SPARKS
Size: 5.47 GB
Quality: 1280×536, 4400 kbps, DTS 1509 kbps
Runtime: 133 mins

Links: iMDB – HOMEPAGE – Trailer – TinySubs
NFO: Here
Sample: Screenshot
Torrent: NewTorrents

Download: FiLEREACTOR (400MB Splits) – NETLOAD (400MB Splits) – NETLOAD (1GB Splits)

more at RLSLOG.net

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

TraX have released the album “Burn The Sky Down” by Emma Hewitt. This album contains 13 tracks including bonus track. Australian born songwriter/vocalist Emma Hewitt burst onto the international dance scene in 2006 as cowriter and featured vocalist on the Chris Lake smash, Carry Me Away. Enjoy..!

Tracklisting:
1. Emma Hewitt – Burn The Sky Down 1:43
2. Emma Hewitt – Colours 4:01
3. Emma Hewitt – Miss You Paradise 3:31
4. Emma Hewitt – These Days Are Ours 3:47
5. Emma Hewitt – Foolish Boy 4:15
6. Emma Hewitt – Rewind 3:20
7. Emma Hewitt – Still Remember You (Stay Forever) 4:22
8. Emma Hewitt – Can’t Turn Around Now 1:50
9. Emma Hewitt – Crucify 3:50
10. Emma Hewitt – This Picture 3:31
11. Emma Hewitt – State That I’m In 2:34
12. Emma Hewitt & 16 Bit Lolitas – Circles 5:55
13. Emma Hewitt & Dash Berlin – Like Spinning Plates (Bonus Track) 6:33

Release Name: Emma_Hewitt-Burn_The_Sky_Down-ARDI3015-WEB-2012-TraX
Size: 115.45 MB

Artist: Emma Hewitt
Album: Burn The Sky Down
Genre: Electronic
Label: Armada Music
Runtime: 49:12 min
Links: NFO | NTi

Download: FileFactory

more at RLSLOG.net

Usenet is a not so popular method of obtaining new scene releases, but it’s actually one of the faster and more convenient. All you need is a NZB file, which is often linked with new posts here at Releaselog (or you can search the files directly as well). There are virtually hundreds of different Usenet providers, but if you want to try this service for the first time and enjoy some advanced functions, Binverse is a good place to start.

Binverse offers a completely FREE 14-day trial, to try their service. The service offers two methods of downloads – unlimited downloads capped at 1 Mbps or Full speed downloads with data cap of 30 GB a month. All you need to activate the free 14-day trial is to register and submit your credit card or PayPal details. You can cancel the service at anytime before the end of trial without being charged, or you can continue paying $14.99 a month for the service afterwards.

With Binverse, you can access over 5 new Terabytes per day of new files and messages. Binverse will also provide you with a special Usenet client with features as Usenet search, built in RAR / PAR support for dealing with large compressed files, intergrated chat, email alerts and many more. There’s really nothing to lose, if you won’t like it, you can just cancel it.