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BotCast #10 On vous présente des beaux noms de sites web, des chihuahuas congelés, Pulp Fiction Fucking Short Version, un wok transmetteur et des politiciens et juges pédophiles. TestDummy est encore là et poursuit les origines de l’impôt et du terme “Docteur”. 1er mars 2007.
BotCast-0010.mp3 BotCast-0010.m3u SHOW NOTES
Break: Milan Kolarovic (Acumen), World War II Memoirs (4m40) www.milankolarovic.com
OutTro: Ryan Cramer, Geometric Shadows
Remerciements: www.Simple-Net.ca et le iPhone Shuffle
-Show number 10
-Date 1er mars 2007
–Simple-net.ca
– Le iPhone Shuffle “Call Martin” -“Calling, Roger”
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INTRO
Le BotCast with cheese –
Site Web: www.ChickenorFish.com/botcast
Email: botcast@cof
Mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/botcast NEW GoogleGroup! pour recevoir les notifications qui indiquent un nouveau BotCast
Abonne-toi au RSS à travers iTunes ou ton RSS reader favori
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FIRST SEGMENT
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BREAK
Break: Milan Kolarovic (Acumen), World War II Memoirs (4m40) www.milankolarovic.com
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SECOND SEGMENT
–Game Tech Support requests:
OutTro: Ryan Cramer, Geometric Shadows
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Site Web: www.ChickenorFish.com/botcast
Email: botcast@cof
Mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/botcast NEW GoogleGroup! pour recevoir les notifications qui indiquent un nouveau BotCast
Abonne-toi au RSS à travers iTunes ou ton RSS reader favori
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Konami slot machines pulled for subliminal messaging
Filed under: Gaming
While we’ve seen quite a few instances where shifty gamblers got the boot, this time it’s the slot machines participating in a mass exodus of Canadian casinos. In another tale of misguided marketing garnering awful PR, Ontario’s provincial gambling operator has “pulled 87 video slot machines out of service or physically removed them from its casinos” after an investigation found
URL: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/96813211/
While we’ve seen quite a few instances where shifty gamblers got the boot, this time it’s the slot machines participating in a mass exodus of Canadian casinos. In another tale of misguided marketing garnering awful PR, Ontario’s provincial gambling operator has “pulled 87 video slot machines out of service or physically removed them from its casinos” after an investigation found some tricky imagery hidden within. Apparently, a number of Konami slot machines flashed “winning jackpot symbols” for a fifth of a second every so often, purportedly giving players “subliminal messages” that would keep them chucking away coins for longer periods of time. Comically, Konami is asserting that the flashing images are simply a ” software glitch” that will be fixed shortly, which leaves us wondering what else could be ailing these machines for the betterment of the establishment. Regardless, the Ontario-based discovery has spawned several other investigations in the US, British Columbia, and Quebec, but it has “yet to be determined” if the flashing imagery has effected the gameplay of addicts professional gamblers.
MS Tech Support Tell Customer to Use Activation Crack
“The Customer Service Manager told me that I could either borrow an XP Home disk from a friend (isn’t that software piracy ??) or look online for one of the many Vista Activation cracks to bypass Vista Activation completely, and specifically mentioned “TimerLock” (um… hey, HE told me to do it !!). Well, I followed his instructions.”
URL: http://digg.com/software/MS_Tech_Support_Tell_Customer_to_Use_Activation_Crack
Google-ized
Google’s unofficial slogan is “Don’t be Evil.” It seems that such a slogan should be applied to oneself above all. Evil aside, Google has put itself in a position of, what can only be construed as, being a censor of information; for example, its decision to violate the openness of the internet by censoring Uruknet from its news service, collaboration with Chinese regime [3], and removing certain sites from google ads, such as controversial Ziopedia.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
TV Station Uses a $10 Wok as a Transmitter – Very Clever
Why pay $20,000 for a commercial link to run your television station when a $10 kitchen wok is just effective? A small television station from the deep south of New Zealand are using wok’s to transmit their program, instead of the more expensive, “professional” option. And, amazingly, it works!
URL: http://digg.com/hardware/TV_Station_Uses_a_10_Wok_as_a_Transmitter_Very_Clever
Texas Governor Perry took Merck money before mandating cervical vaccine
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) says that it’s just a coincidence that he and eight other lawmakers received donations of $5,000 each from Merck lobbyists just a few days before mandating the drug giant’s HPV cervical cancer vaccine for all females in Texas ages 12 and up.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
Safety alarms raised at nuclear weapons plant
Electrical failures have shut down the plant. The roof has leaked. Decrepit machinery dates back more than 40 years. Safety lapses led inspectors to levy fines twice within two years. And employees, under deadline pressure, complain they are often worked past the point of exhaustion. If this factory were producing medical devices or refining gasoline, the conditions would be serious enough. But this is where they work on nuclear bombs.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
Affidavit: McVeigh had high-level help
Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says a high-ranking FBI official “apparently” was directing Timothy McVeigh in the plot to blow up a government building and might have changed the original target of the attack, according to a new affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Utah.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
German Bible Goes Politically Correct
A new German translation of the Bible is aimed at ridding the Holy Scriptures of their misogynist and anti-Semitic traits as well as flashing out the relationship between the poor and the privileged.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/02/expert_debunks_.html
According to a new study by a researcher at Texas A&M International University, studies that see a connection between video games and violent behavior usually suffer from shoddy research techniques. Dr. Christopher Ferguson studied the results of a number of recent studies linking violent video games to aggressive behavior with an eye not just to individual results, but also to overall trends in the studies as a whole.
Ferguson found that the connection between violence and gaming had more to do with publication bias than it did with any actual correlation. In other words, journals were more likely to publish studies that supported the hypothesis that playing violent games made a subject more prone to violent behavior. Nothing like scientific stacking the deck, eh? Ferguson sums it up nicely:
Thus it was concluded that there is little evidence from the current body of literature on violent video games that playing violent video games is either causally or correlationally associated with increases in aggressive behavior.
Expect He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named to jump on this one like a duck on a junebug, folks.
Researcher Finds Scant Evidence Linking Violent Games With Aggressive Behavior
Researcher Finds Scant Evidence Linking Violent Games With Aggressive Behavior
Any scientific link between violent video games and violent behavior remains tenuous.
At least, that’s the conclusion of a Ph.D faculty member at Texas A&M International University’s Department of Behavioral, Applied Sciences and Criminal Justice. The researcher, Christopher Ferguson forwarded GamePolitics information about a study he recently completed. In an e-mail, Ferguson wrote:
I conducted a meta-analysis of studies associating violent video game exposure with aggressive behaviors. A meta-analysis involves collecting existing studies in the literature, and obtaining an over all effect size (i.e. degree of relationship) for all of the studies examined. This allows us to get a sense, not just for individual research projects, but rather for the overall result from combined studies in a field.
In the current publication, studies that examined violent video game effects on aggressive behavior were analyzed. Also examined was a phenomenon called “publication bias” which means that scientific journals are more likely to publish studies that support a particular hypothesis than those that reject it.
Results from the current meta-analysis found that there were about 25 recent studies on violent video game effects, with conflicting results.
Overall results of the study found that although violent video games appear to increase people’s aggressive thoughts (which it would not be surprising that people are still thinking about what they were just playing), violent games do not appear to increase aggressive behavior.
This as true for both correlational and experimental studies. Also it was found that studies that employed less standardized measures of aggression produced higher effects than better standardized measures of aggression. In other words, better measures of aggression are associated with lower effects.
Publication bias appeared to be a significant issue for studies of aggressive behavior. Thus it was concluded that there is little evidence from the current body of literature on violent video games that playing violent video games is either causally or correlationally associated with increases in aggressive behavior.
Ferguson included a copy of his findings, from which the following quotes were lifted:
(it) appears that news outlets may promote media violence in general, and video game violence specifically as a direct cause of violent behavior.
Despite the relatively young and sparse nature of the research on violent video game effects, some researchers have claimed that the evidence is conclusive…
Yet a close read of the literature reveals that many of the studies used to support this link provide only questionable or inconsistent evidence.
Part of the problem may be that video game researchers have adopted unreliable methodologies from media violence research in general… Most of the research (particularly laboratory research) employs unvalidated ad-hoc measures of “aggression”.
Lead-laden lunchboxes OK’d by government
In 2005, when government scientists tested 60 soft, vinyl lunchboxes, they found that one in five contained amounts of lead that medical experts consider unsafe — and several had more than 10 times hazardous levels.But that’s not what they told the public.Instead, the Consumer Product Safety Commission released a statement that they found “no instances of hazardous levels.” And they refused to release their actual test results, citing regulations that protect manufacturers from having their information released to the public.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
More than a year after death, man found in front of his TV
Neighbors said they had thought Ricardo was in a hospital or nursing home. Still, neighbor Diane Devon said residents at a gathering last month remarked that they hadn’t seen him in some time. “We never thought to check on him,” she said.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
Four more Americans charged in CIA kidnapping of Muslim cleric
On Friday an Italian judge charged four more Americans to stand trial for kidnapping of Italian cleric Hassan Nasr in 2003, bringing the total number of Americans charged to 26.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20070218/CPARTS01/70218029/1043/CPARTS01
Le Canada, une menace pour Hollywood
Le piratage des films est en pleine expansion au Canada, alimentant les marchés internationaux et ulcérant les grands studios de Hollywood qui comptabilisent leurs pertes par millions.
La Chine et la Russie posent «le plus de problèmes à l’industrie du droit d’auteur», mais «le problème de l’enregistrement non autorisé de films (camcording) dans les cinémas au Canada frôle la crise».
Ce constat a été fait cette semaine par l’Alliance internationale pour la propriété intellectuelle (IIPA), un groupe de pression financé par l’industrie américaine du droit d’auteur, la plus importante au monde, dans une lettre envoyée à la représentante américaine au Commerce, Susan Schwab.
L’Alliance, qui accuse le Canada de ne pas protéger suffisamment les droits d’auteur, demande aux autorités américaines de mettre le voisin canadien sur la «liste de surveillance prioritaire» des pays fautifs dans ce domaine aux côtés de la Chine, de la Russie et de l’Inde.
«En 2005 on estimait qu’environ 20% des films piratés sur le marché mondial provenaient du Canada, et un bon pourcentage de Montréal», estime Serge Corriveau, enquêteur pour l’Association canadienne des distributeurs de films, une antenne des grands studios hollywoodiens.
Ceux-ci chiffrent à plus de 6,1 milliards de dollars les pertes qu’ils subissent annuellement à cause du piratage de leurs films dans le monde.
«Les blockbusters (films à grand succès) attirent toujours les pirates, mais au cours des dernières années au-delà de 200 films ont été enregistrés (au Canada) et ils se sont retrouvés dans 45 pays», assure M. Corriveau.
L’industrie dénonce le «laxisme» des lois canadiennes en matière de lutte contre le piratage de films. Alors qu’aux États-Unis, l’acte de filmer au cinéma est un crime dans plusieurs États, dont la Californie, il n’en est rien au Canada.
Certes, une personne prise en flagrant délit de filmer dans un cinéma peut y être poursuivie au civil par le propriétaire de la salle, le distributeur ou le studio. Mais pour que des accusations criminelles soient portées contre cette personne, la police doit prouver qu’elle avait l’intention de distribuer le film.
«Pour prouver l’intention, ça demande plus de preuves. Il ne s’agit pas de voir quelqu’un filmer dans un cinéma, il faut accumuler des preuves afin d’avoir un mandat de perquisition, par exemple, pour aller fouiller dans son ordinateur. Ce n’est pas facile», explique Helaine Lavergne, porte-parole de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada (GRC).
Devant ce quasi-vide juridique, des propriétaires de salle se font justice eux-mêmes. Lors de premières à Montréal, qualifiée dans l’industrie de «capitale canadienne du piratage«, certains cinémas utilisent des détecteurs de métal à l’entrée afin de décourager les pirates potentiels. La direction d’une chaîne de «méga-cinéma» est même allée jusqu’à interdire l’entrée à de présumés pirates.
Et si Hollywood perd de gros sous dans cette histoire, des adeptes du piratage n’en font pas pour autant leurs choux gras.
«Il y a tellement de gens qui le font de nos jours. Ce n’est pas vrai que les pirates font tous de l’argent avec ça (…), on fait ça pour le plaisir, pour regarder les films chez nous. On le fait aussi un peu pour emmerder les studios américains. Ils ne sont pas à plaindre, ils ne manquent pas d’argent», se vantaient récemment deux pirates déclarés au Journal de Montréal.
“US Senators to arrive in israel for indoctrination”
“We think that it is important that the members of the delegation feel the connection and understand Israel better. They are mostly non-Jewish and we want them to feel some obligation to the country,” he added.
URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
JE VEUX EN PARLER PLUS EN DÉTAIL DE CELLE LA http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/02/14/software-warnings.html
The entertainment and software industries have found an effective tool to deter some Canadians from downloading TV programs, movies, music and software. And it doesn’t involve going to court.
A number of industry groups, mostly based in the United States, are relying on e-mail to get the message out that peer-to-peer file sharing is illegal. Thousands of the e-mails are being sent to Canadian users each month under a program known as “notice and notice.”
Major Canadian internet service providers including Rogers, Bell and Telus have voluntarily agreed to distribute the notices to their customers on behalf of the industry associations. Telus forwards an average of 4,000 notices every month.
Stephen Harrington received a notice late last year after downloading a computer game from a bit torrent file-sharing site. (Bit torrent sites are used to share larger files, such as movies.)
Harrington wanted to play the game with his friends, liked it, and purchased it a few days later.
“Actually, I almost deleted it. But I read through and was quite surprised. But I was initially concerned,” Harrington said.
The entertainment industry has long expressed frustration with Canada, and its unwillingness to modernize copyright laws.
“Canada’s copyright laws regarding uploading and downloading are unclear, and that does present a number of challenges in curbing internet piracy,” said Neil MacBride, a vice-president with the Business Software Alliance, a Washington D.C.-based industry association that fights software piracy.
The Business Software Alliance sent out about 60,000 “notice and notice” e-mails to Canadian internet users in 2006. “They’ve been most effective,” MacBride said.
‘Stop this infringing activity’
“If you’re somebody who’s [downloading] and you receive word that you’re essentially using somebody else’s property without their permission, it seems to have the desired effect — namely, people take it seriously and alter their behaviour accordingly.”The notices contain terse legal language: “This unauthorized copying and distribution constitutes copyright infringement under applicable national laws and international treaties. We urge you to take immediate action to stop this infringing activity and inform us of the results of your actions,” reads one of the e-mails, sent by NBC Universal to Canadian internet users who were suspected of downloading a NBC television show.
Canadian users are tracked by IP address when content is downloaded from the internet.
“It doesn’t have any significant legal weight in the sense that it doesn’t mean they’re facing a lawsuit immediately or even the claims of infringement have been proven,” said leading internet law expert Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa.
But Geist said the “notice and notice” program has been successful in scaring people to stop downloading.
“I think they’ve proven surprisingly effective and in fact indications are that when subscribers receive these, a significant proportion will take down the offending content if, in fact, it is infringing,” he said.
Harrington says he has not downloaded material using peer-to-peer sites since he received his e-mail notice, forwarded by his ISP, Rogers Communications. But he is concerned about privacy: What information are the ISPs passing along to the industry groups?
“The ISPs are the only ones who know what individuals are doing what, so they’re trying to push that thin blue line and get to individual privacy that way,” he said.
No privacy issues, ISPs say
Both Rogers and Telus maintain they do not pass any personal information, such as user name or address, to any of the groups initiating the notice e-mails.
“We protect the rights of our customers and the privacy of our customers and the information about our customers quite vigorously and we do not pass the information about our customers on to third parties,” said Michael Lee, chief strategy officer for Rogers Communications.
The notice program in effect in Canada is essentially a tool to alert users that they are downloading what the industry groups see as copyrighted material. Even though tens of thousands of e-mails have been distributed over the last few years, no one has been prosecuted for copyright violation as a result of the notices.
“Notice and notice” differs from the “notice and take-down” program that’s in place in the United States. There, when an industry group notices an alleged copyright violation, an e-mail similar to the ones being sent to Canadian users is forwarded to the American ISP. In most cases, the ISPs are forced to immediately take down the content or face penalties.
“I think notice-in-notice is a great alternative that really respects privacy and free speech much more than notice and take-down,” said Ren Bucholz of the internet advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
==================================================================http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1705/125/
The Effectiveness of Notice and Notice
The CBC runs a story today on the growing use of “notice and notice” by copyright holders. Telus apparently sends out about a thousand notices each week, while the Business Software Alliance says it sent out 60,000 notifications to Canadians last year. These numbers are consistent with my own experience as I now regularly receive emails from Canadians asking about the implications of such notifications. The notice and notice system involves a notification from a copyright holder – often involving movies, software or music – claiming that a subscriber has made available or downloaded content without authorization on file sharing systems. The Internet Service Provider forwards the notification to the subscriber but takes no other action – it does not pass along the subscriber’s personal information, remove the content from its system, or cancel the subscriber’s service. It falls to the subscriber to act and as the CBC story notes, many remove the infringing content (if indeed it is infringing) voluntarily.
Some people object to U.S.-based notifications that carry no legal weight in Canada being sent to Canadians with the cooperation of Canadian ISPs. I am supportive of the system since I think it balances various interests in fair manner. First, it stands in marked contrast to the U.S. notice and takedown approach, which creates incentives for ISPs to remove content without warning or evidence of actual infringement. The recent avalanche of Viacom notices – which targeted dozens of non-infringing videos – provides a good case study for why the notice and takedown system can have a chilling effect on online speech. Second, the approach protects user privacy, consistent with national privacy law and the CRIA file sharing case from 2004. Third, it reflects a consistency between industry practice and proposed legislation. While Bill C-60 was criticized for some its provisions, many applauded the decision to codify a notice-and-notice system into law (I assessed the ISP provisions here). The IIPA may be demanding that Canada follow the U.S. approach, but the effectiveness of the Canadian notice and notice system demonstrates that a balancing privacy, free speech, and copyright can lead to solutions that serve everyone’s best interests.
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20070216/CPMONDE/70216028/1014/CPMONDE Un juge italien a décidé vendredi de renvoyer devant le tribunal de Milan (nord) 26 agents de la CIA poursuivis pour l’enlèvement en Italie d’un ex-imam égyptien en 2003, l’un des cas de transfert secret de détenus dénoncé par le Parlement européen.
La décision du juge des audiences préliminaires de Milan, Caterina Interlandi, concerne aussi le général Nicolo Pollari, ancien chef des services de renseignement militaire italiens (SISMI), limogé en novembre pour son implication dans cette affaire.
Il figure sur la liste des accusés aux côtés, entre autres, des anciens responsables de la CIA en Italie, les Américains Jeff Castelli et Robert Seldon Lady, ou de l’ancien numéro 2 du SISMI, Marco Mancini.
Le procès, sans précédent en Europe en ce qui concerne le nombre d’agents américains renvoyés devant la justice, débutera le 8 juin, a ajouté Mme Interlandi, et il se déroulera par contumace en ce qui concerne les citoyens américains.
Selon la presse italienne, la majorité des 26 agents a agi sous de faux noms et se trouve actuellement aux États-Unis.
Il y a 15 jours, la justice allemande a délivré 13 mandats d’arrêt contre des agents présumés de la CIA soupçonnés d’avoir enlevé en 2003 en Macédoine l’Allemand d’origine libanaise Khaled el-Masri.
L’enlèvement d’Abou Omar est l’un des cas dénoncés par le rapporteur du Conseil de l’Europe Dick Marty dans son étude sur les vols secrets de la CIA.
Soupçonné de terrorisme, l’ex-imam égyptien Abou Omar a été enlevé le 17 février 2003 à Milan par un commando de la CIA aidé par des agents italiens, selon le parquet de Milan.
Conduit à la base américaine d’Aviano, dans le nord-est de l’Italie, il a été transféré en Égypte après le rapt, où il a été incarcéré et affirme avoir subi des tortures.
Relâché dimanche par les autorités égyptiennes, il a annoncé son intention de porter plainte contre Silvio Berlusconi pour obtenir dix millions d’euros de dommages-intérêts «pour son implication dans l’enlèvement en tant que chef du gouvernement (à l’époque des faits) et pour avoir permis à la CIA de le capturer».
Un mandat d’arrêt européen a été émis contre les 26 Américains mais la demande d’extradition adressée aux États-Unis est toujours sur le bureau du ministre italien de la Justice, Clemente Mastella, seul autorisé à la transmettre.
Check ca, c’est véridique. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8996055986353195886&q=Les+OGM+sont-ils+dangereux+pour+la+sant%C3%A9 OGM : un reportage fait fureur sur Internet
http://technaute.lapresseaffaires.com/nouvelles/texte_complet.php?id=81,12399,0,022007,1331312.html&ref=top_short
Cyberpresse
Stéphanie Bérubé
13 février 2007 – 08h54
Depuis quatre jours, plus d’un million d’internautes ont regardé le documentaire français «Les OGM sont-ils dangereux pour la santé? L’étude qui accuse».
Propulsé par une fausse rumeur de censure, ce reportage de 2005 se passe de courriel en courriel. Le sujet de tant d’intérêt? Deux études démontreraient que des rats nourris avec des OGM subiraient eux-mêmes des mutations génétiques.
«C’est un documentaire très choquant parce qu’on voit que certains secrets commerciaux sont très bien protégés», indique Jocelyn Desjardins, de Greenpeace Québec, qui est évidemment ravi de voir la popularité inespérée de ce reportage. D’une moyenne de 300 connections par jour, en novembre, le lien de Google qui présente la vidéo est maintenant visité par 10 fois plus de monde, tous les jours. Hier après-midi, ils étaient plus de 2,3 millions à avoir pris le temps de regarder le reportage.
Les messages qui accompagnent la vidéo, lorsqu’elle est envoyée par courrier électronique, parlent d’un cas de censure. Or il n’en n’est rien. «C’est un beau cas de téléphone arabe», admet Jocelyn Desjardins. Même le patron de la défunte émission française 90 minutes a été surpris de l’ampleur du mouvement. Il a confirmé qu’il n’y avait pas eu censure.
Si le reportage fait tant jaser, deux ans après sa diffusion initiale, c’est que peu de films abordent le sujet des organismes génétiquement modifiés, croit le représentant québécois de Greenpeace. Et celui de l’émission 90 minutes adopte un ton très dramatique, avec musique d’ambiance et sous-entendus très efficaces.
On y présente deux études sur des rats nourris aux OGM, dont une provenant du fabricant de grains transgéniques Monsanto. Bien qu’on ait trouvé des lésions sur certains rats nourris au maïs Monsanto, la multinationale a défendu son innocuité. Avec succès : la France a autorisé son utilisation en 2005. Au Canada, ce maïs transgénique est approuvé pour la consommation humaine depuis 2003.
