Internet actually good for something

how metafilter saved two russian women from potential human trafficking the woman behind the rescue speaks out - The Human Condition Blog - Newsweek.com

I caught the tail-end of this live. Good stuff.

Cue Fear-Mongering in 3...2...

Scientists Create First Self-Replicating Synthetic Life | Wired Science | Wired.com

Of course, it does fuck-all but reproduce, but hey, artificial life! So, we've got that going for us now.

Portal is FREE!

Portal is FREE!

You should get this. Portal is not only free, but it's probably the best demonstration of the way that games can communicate story, ideas and techniques to a player. It's only about 3 - 4 hours long, and the behind-the-scenes commentary you can turn on is incredibly illuminating on how they sit down and actually design these game spaces to communicate to the player.

Or you could be like me and not have anyone to worry about

Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook - Facebook - Gizmodo

More Reasons Why You Should Still Quit Facebook - Facebook - Gizmodo

The Devolution of Facebook Privacy - Facebook Privacy - Gizmodo

Of course, these days people are actually increasingly trying to reduce their privacy because they somehow equate that with fame - something we have four or five years of faux-celebrities and real celebrities being more famous for giving us a gynecologist's eye view of their bodies to thank - I doubt that this will resonate all that well, but I'll do my part to spread the message none the less.

Stare Decisis. Look it up.

U.S. Supreme Court to Review Game Ratings Law - U.s. Supreme Court - Kotaku

Finally. After every single version of this law across the nation has been struck down, with more photocopies on the way, the Supreme Court will step in to squish all of these short-sighted laws once and for all.

Brazil doesn't like Orkut, apparently

Google: U.S. Demanded User Info 3,500 Times in 6 Months | Threat Level | Wired.com

It's things like this that make Google's position on freedoms so interesting. All your data that you put on there belongs to them, but they hate censorship and secrets. Very odd. Love this thing, though.

The 1st Amendment violates Apples dev agreement, apparently

Apple Blocks Pulitzer Prize-Winning Cartoonist From App Store - app store - Gizmodo

Freedom of speech, who needs it? Seriously, an anti-satire clause? I know that Apple are just reaching for the sky when it comes to dick moves these days, from the horribleness of the new iAd system (1 in three app launches forces a full-screen ad and all apps have 1/8th of the screen taken up by ads at all times), to freezing out coding languages to screw over Adobe, and suing to ban HTC phones for patent infringement over the blatantly over-broad patents that Apple holds as some kind of proxy war with Google over Android, Chrome OS and Google applications like Google Docs. Add in the generally crappy way they treat their customers ("You can only use the devices you paid for how we say you can use them"), and there's a very good reason why I don't buy Apple products.

@loc WTFLOLBBQ

Your Past and Future Tweets Will Be Archived At the Library of Congress - Library of congress twitter - Gizmodo

Sweet Jesus, why? Now, when the aliens finally visit us and demand to see the finest repository of human knowledge, they're gonna get a face full of all of the pubescent whining and blatant corporate whoring that Twitter represents. That is, if YouTube comments haven't convinced them to glass the planet smooth first.

Obama Backtracks on NASA Capsule : Discovery News

Obama Backtracks on NASA Capsule : Discovery News

I don't know if it's because this was all part of the Obama Administration's master plan to drastically lower expectations, and then reap the rewards of not killing one of the most beloved US Government programs, or maybe the constant shouting from both sides of the political aisle about actually doing that, but they're backtracking on abandoning long-range manned space flight. Looks like they're keeping the one part of Ares that made sense (the crew capsule) and going with a "as yet unnamed" heavy-lift rocket system. Well, considering they're dumping $3.1 billion into the Marshall Space Center in Alabama, and that only does Constellation, which is still getting the axe, and the Shuttle, which is going away, I'm willing to bet $10 that this mysterious heavy-lift rocket system is the DIRECT/Jupiter rocket system, which is almost entirely made out of retrofitted, modified and updated Shuttle parts. Good for them, and good for NASA.