Just a few days after Turkey's scandal-rocked government banned Twitter by tweaking national DNS settings, the state has doubled down by ordering ISPs to block Twitter's IP addresses, in response… Read the rest of the article: Turkey orders block of Twitter's IP addresses

Here's a reading (MP3) of a recent Guardian column, What happens with digital rights management in the real world where I attempt to explain the technological realpolitik of DRM, which… Read the rest of the article: Podcast: What happens with digital rights management in the real world?

Niklas writes, "I have a wonderful thing for you: The Goethe Institute in Kraków asked me if I could make an installation for their exhibition on playing, called "SPIELTRIEB!". Since… Read the rest of the article: Suck the balls! Pneumatics + plastic balls = fun at Kraków's Goethe Institute

Pt and Limor write, "The Glaucus, named after the Blue Sea Slug (Glaucus Atlanticus), is an open source soft robotic quadruped from Super-Releaser. It is a proof of concept for… Read the rest of the article: Open source soft robotic quadruped with many applications

Here's Wil Wheaton reading chapter one of my novel Homeland (here's the MP3, which I paid to independently produce for the third Humble Ebook Bundle, which runs for another eight… Read the rest of the article: Wil Wheaton reads chapter one of Homeland

One year ago today Arijit "Poop Strong" Guha has died of colon cancer: Arijit "Poop Strong" Guha (Twitter), a really sweet guy who took on a dirty rotten insurance company… Read the rest of the article: This Day in Blogging History: RIP, Arijit "Poop Strong" Guha; Are kidnapped children tax-deductible?; Breakfast couture

Ifixit is celebrating MacGyver's birthday with an Action Hero Toolkit in a Altos-tin-sized-tin. It includes a bobby pin, a match, a rubber band, bubble gum, a birthday candle, a paper… Read the rest of the article: Ifixit's MacGyver toolkit

Writing in Politics.co.uk, Frances Crook (chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform) decries the latest nasty Tory tough-on-crime initiative: denying books from the outside to prisoners, many of… Read the rest of the article: UK Tories ban sending books to prisoners

Just look at it. I… just… don't… know… o.0 (Thanks, Josef!)

Facebook continues to tighten the screws on the businesses that use the service to market to their customers. Independent research shows that new updates from businesses reach about six percent… Read the rest of the article: Unless companies pay, their Facebook updates reach 6 percent of followers

A new Snowden leak details an NSA operation called SHOTGIANT through which the US spies infiltrated Chinese electronics giant Huawei — ironically, because Huawei is a company often accused of… Read the rest of the article: NSA hacked Huawei, totally penetrated its networks and systems, stole its sourcecode

The Business Software Alliance — a proprietary software industry group — has pulled a controversial ad that promised cash to people who snitched on friends and employers who used pirated… Read the rest of the article: Business Software Alliance accused of pirating the photo they used in their snitch-on-pirates ad

When Wil Wheaton was reading the audiobook for my novel Homeland (exclusively available through the Humble Ebook Bundle for the next nine days!), I had the great pleasure of listening… Read the rest of the article: Wil Wheaton's subconscious wants to "melt some camels" (?!)

One year ago today Grandmothers who are brilliant at technology: "Grandma Got STEM" profiles grandmothers who have accomplished marvellous feats of technology, and aims to drive a stake through the… Read the rest of the article: This Day in Blogging History: Grandma Got STEM; New Zealand's stupid copyright law dies; Mikroman

Christopher Kosek writes, "'The Default Trigger' is a 52 page, free (with a pay what you want version available) digital graphic novel about student loan debt, the shadowy figures lurking… Read the rest of the article: Free science fictional graphic novel about the student debt conspiracy

Here's a funny fake-news video reporting on the mass-migration of teens from Facebook (where their parents have migrated) to the comments section of a slow-motion Youtube video of a deer… Read the rest of the article: Teens migrate from Facebook to a Youtube video's comment-section (funny)

One year ago today NY judge says running a search engine for news is a copyright violation: A NY federal judge handed down a terrible ruling in AP vs Meltwater,… Read the rest of the article: This Day in Blogging History: NY Judge rules news-search violates copyright; Wine-cask hotel-rooms; Underwood casemod

A third of people who complain about debt-collectors who break the law say they don't even owe the money under discussion. Of the victims who complained to the Consumer Financial… Read the rest of the article: Debt collectors illegally hound people who don't owe money

Tavie sez, "Canadian treasure Scott Thompson's popular Kids in the Hall character, Danny Husk starred in his own graphic novel in 2010, Husk: The Hollow Planet. A blend of fantasy… Read the rest of the article: Kickstarting a sequel to Scott "Kids in the Hall" Thompson's Danny Husk comic

Andrew "weev" Auernheimer is serving a 41-month sentence for visiting a publicly available webpage and revealing that AT&T had not secured its customers' sensitive financial information. Now, weev's lawyers are… Read the rest of the article: Assistant AG admits he doesn't understand what Weev did, but he's sure it's bad