tech@vedella

The FreeBieber campaign -- which seeks to raise awareness of the US illegal streaming bill that criminalizes the kind of YouTube cover songs Bieber launched his career with -- has received a legal threat from Justin Bieber's lawyers, who allege that the campaign infringes on Bieber's publicity rights. But as this reply letter from the [...]

Beloved kids' book The Phantom Tollbooth turns 50 this year (commemorated by a new edition introduced by Michael Chabon) and an oversubscribed Kickstarter campaign has been funded to produce a documentary about the extraordinary book and the impact it's had over its half-century. With conversations - and banter - from Norton and Jules, this documentary [...]

Margaret Thatcher leads Britain's former prime-ministers in claiming expenses back from the taxpayer. She's been reimbursed more than £500,000 in the past five years. Figures revealed by the Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, in response to a written parliamentary question by the Conservative MP Philip Hollobone, show that Thatcher has received £535,000 from the state [...]

Zombie Poodle, an unsourced net-finding, shows how a little creative dog grooming can turn even the cutest dog-breeds into shambling zombies. Just a Zombie Poodle (Pic) (via Neatorama)

OAKLAND RIOT CAT. Here's the background. (via Renny Gleeson)

The Guardian has an update on the case of Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran who suffered serious head injuries after being hit by a projectile fired by police during the Occupy Oakland protests Tuesday night. He will undergo brain surgery within the next 48 hours. Donations collected here to help with medical costs. Updates [...]

PROTECT-IP is a US Senate bill that establishes a draconian censorship and surveillance regime in America in the name of protecting copyright. Its House version, SOPA, has just been introduced, and it's even worse than PROTECT-IP. Much, much worse: As with its Senate-side evil sister, PROTECT-IP, SOPA would require service providers to “disappear” certain websites, [...]

The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories is a collection of "lost" Dr Seuss stories culled from short stories published in magazines like Redbook in the 1940s and 1950s, collected and reprinted for the first time. The publication of a new Seuss collection is reason to celebrate in and of itself, and Bippolo Seed is [...]

Giles Fraser, a canon at London's St Paul's Cathedral, has resigned his job and given up his church residence in protest of the plan to forcibly evict the Occupy London protesters camped in St Paul's Square. It may have been that accessibility to the media and willingness to be outspoken, together with his instinctive sympathy [...]

Sony will finally make its own cellphones, absorbing the joint-venture it established with Ericsson in 2001. The time it took for this decision to move from evident necessity to execution -- about 3 years -- is effectively a benchmark. If you struck Sony on the head with an axe, or punched it in the balls, [...]

I can't find any further info on this Venn piagram, but surely it belongs in the annals of great math related food humor. Update: It only took nine minutes for more context to arrive, courtesy of adamhst in the comments: this was created by Redditor HungryHungryHippy in celebration of the last Pi Day. Venn piagram.

I'm the guest on The Experts today at 5pm Pacific time. It's hosted by Alexis Diana and streams live on Triggla.tv.

Pretty much every item for sale on this 1907 ad for "open driving" accessories would make my life better today in 2011, and I don't even own a car. Sleeve protector, robes and apron, raw hide tire bands, and bullet lamps, yes please! Accessories for Open Driving, 1907

Quick: Name a common food, consumed every day by most people, that: • Increases overall calorie consumption by 400 calories per day • Affects the human brain in much the same way as morphine • Has a greater impact on blood sugar levels than a candy bar • Is consumed at the rate of 133 [...]

Surrey University sociologist Dr Paul Hodkinson conducted a series of follow-up interviews with goths he'd studied as teenagers in the 90s and found that the cohort has made a pretty graceful transition into middle age and parenthood: "It's a relatively middle-class subculture, so despite … all the going out and being into the music, goths [...]

WFMU presents a festival celebrating radio's future as it takes on new forms in the digital age for the medium's fans, tinkerers and future thinkers. A special opening night performance with Radio Legend Joe Frank, a day of talks featuring Tom Scharpling, Marc Maron, Ira Glass, Kenneth Goldsmith, Gabriella Coleman, DJ /rupture, Brooke Gladstone and [...]

COSMIC RAYS TURNED HER INTO A FANTASTIC ICE CREAM TREAT. Josh Glenn says John Hilgart, creator of the excellent comic-book detail galleries Comic Book Cartography, 4CP, and Supertype!, has recently discovered a motley crew of what he calls “implicit superheroes” — heroes who were there, all along, trapped in the mastheads of classic comics, if [...]

Ben Marks says: "In our latest interview with Mardi and Stan Timm, the couple who collect novelties such as Girlie Glasses and Fake Barf, we drill down on the history of chattering teeth, which were manufactured by H. Fishlove & Co. as Yakity-Yak. The Timm's describe the gag's inspiration (the inventor was riffing on a 'garage' for dentures), [...]

Chris Fenton is using his MakerBot 3D printer to print out a mechanical computer; here he demonstrates one of the counting mechanisms. Because I have a 3D printer and I can!

[Video Link.] Video analysis by blogger Matt Kresling: "Footage from the Occupy Oakland protest, October 25th, 2011. After protesters ran to the aid of a badly-injured person, Oakland Police deliberately lobbed a flash grenade into the crowd. Whatever you think of the Occupy movement, police behavior of this kind is criminal and should be prosecuted." [...]