Ton Siedsma, a lawyer for the Dutch civil liberties group Bits of Freedom, volunteered to have a week's worth of his phone's metadata collected and analyzed by researchers from Ghent… Read the rest of the article: How your smartphone betrays you all day long

Todd from We the Builders writes, "100 people worldwide 3D printed pieces for this three foot tall sculpture of the Houdon bust of Benjamin Franklin.; all 200 pieces were mailed… Read the rest of the article: Timelapse assembly of giant, crowdsourced, 3D printed Ben Franklin

Carl sends us, "beautiful, authentic-looking temporary tattoos designed by famous tattooers, including Dan Smith, Dean Sacred, BJ Betts, Dusty Neal, Myra Oh, and many more." Temporary Tattoos | Tattoo You… Read the rest of the article: Temporary tattoos by accomplished tattoo artists

Rightscorp — a firm that asks ISPs to disconnect you from the Internet unless you pay it money for alleged, unproven copyright infringements — was finally challenged in court by… Read the rest of the article: Rightscorp cuts-and-runs as soon as it is challenged in court

Tom Burtonwood sez, "I have just published Folium, a 3D printed book of bas relief from the Art Institute of Chicago; it's posted to thingiverse for download: 12 pages, 9… Read the rest of the article: 3D printed book of bas relief from Art Institute of Chicago

A study [PDF] published in a journal of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence found that sites that have a "downvote" button to punish bad comments lock the… Read the rest of the article: Downvoting considered harmful

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cindy Cohn is on fire: "Let's be clear: Under international human rights law, secret "law" doesn't even qualify as 'law' at all."

Evan from Fight for the Future writes, "Fight for the Future and Namecheap just parked a truck directly across the street from the FCC with a huge video billboard mounted… Read the rest of the article: Giant net-neutrality videoboard at FCC's front doors wants YOUR videos

The Slow Regard of Silent Things being his next novel, a fantasy title due out at the end of October.

Paul Di Filippo describes Ben Parzybok's new novel, Sherwood Nation: "The book is obviously as headline-friendly as the Ferguson riots, inequality debates, Occupy protests and climate change reports; but there's… Read the rest of the article: SF predicting the present: novel anticipated Detroit water crisis

"Users who try to use anonymity, or cover themselves up on the internet, are usually doing things that aren't so-to-speak legal; we have the right to terminate, fine, or suspend… Read the rest of the article: Comcast blocks Tor (updated)

In Real Life is the book-length graphic novel adapted by Jen Wang from my short story Anda's Game, about a girl who encounters a union organizer working to sign up… Read the rest of the article: Excerpt from In Real Life, YA graphic novel about gold farmers

Minnesota's Kahler Nygard drew a Spirit Air boarding car with the dreaded "SSSS" extra-search marker, and halfway to Denver, Spirit and/or the TSA decided he hadn't been searched properly (he… Read the rest of the article: TSA demands to search man who's already flown

One year Netflix uses piracy stats to choose its programming: Senior executives from Netflix have explained their method for choosing which programs to license for the service: they buy the… Read the rest of the article: Blogging History: Netflix uses piracy to guide business decisions; Asking favors from writers; Bubblegum Alley

Dotcom claims he has emails between New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Warner exec Kevin Tsujihara in which Tsujihara explains that Dotcom was followed by private security in Hong… Read the rest of the article: Kim Dotcom accuses NZ PM Key of conspiring with Warner to extradite him to US

Akai Tento's Yahoo Japan Store features some of the beautiful glistening gummi larvae, worms and bugs for sale in the tiny coffee shop/market stall in Aomori Prefecture, a Japanese fishing… Read the rest of the article: Giant grubs, bug and worms made of gummi

62,000 US drivers have been pulled over and had their cash seized by small-town American cops in the past 13 years, under civil forfeiture laws that let them declare anyone… Read the rest of the article: CBC warns Canadians: US cops will pull you over and steal your money

Nerd Alert Creations's Harry Potter skater dresses are made to order and come in all your favorite houses; they come in sleeves or sleveless. (via Geekymerch)

One year After the Meltdown: tracking the fortunes reaped by the bankers who tanked the economy: Documents the fate of the regulators, executives, and firms that were most directly responsible… Read the rest of the article: Blogging History: Fortunes of bankers who tanked world economy; Roy Disney demands Eisner's still-beating heart

Author Paul Di Filippo did a residency for Matera, a legendary, ancient Italian city and wrote "Chasing the Queen of Sassi" based on his experience of the region.