... Dave Winer writing on the passing of Gawker.

Now that the line has been crossed, it's fair to assume it will become standard practice for billionaires like Thiel to finance lawsuits until the publication loses and has to sell itself to pay the judgment.

Hmm - not so sure I agree. Gawker was the worst and lowest scum - with Nick Denton taking his cue from the British Gutter Press, despite his education and early days as an FT reporter. He should have known better, but in Gawker he led the pandering to the lowest form of taste. I am mixed about the ability to kill a publication, but it has always been possible.

Gawker made the mistake of writing things that were secret and really and truly added little value to the public discourse. Again, not a fan of Christine O'Donnell, and I get their defense - but why allow the writer to publish anonymously?

This time they picked on the wrong guy. I don't like Thiel. But if we don't like the laws - change them.

That said, lets say that Thiel doesn't like what The Intercept writes about him - I do not think he would take them on. Because they are writing journalism. Gawker was not journalism.

Apple: If we're forced to build a tool to hack iPhones, someone will steal it.
FBI: Nonsense.
Russia: We just published NSA's hacking tools

... Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) August 17, 2016

Read All About It.

... for very good reasons. That said, it accounts for seven of the top selling beer brands in the USA. I don't drink any of the other three either, but that is by-the-by. Most important fact to note?

Lite Beer is all Marketing, proving that in America, you really can rely on the gullibility of the public.

But there's more

Consider this

• Calories in a Bud Light - 145
• Calories in a Guiness - 126

Read All About It

The conclusion of this piece ....

For only a movement that swells into every street and across borders and does not give up can stop the warmongers. Next year, it will be a century since Wilfred Owen wrote the following. Every journalist should read it and remember it...

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

This is a great post from my buddy David Airey.

SHAMEFUL actions by Zara. A boycott by all of their customers should be the minimum. And they should pay at least double to every single artist for stealing their work and set up a foundation to support other artists.

.. but not what you expect in many ways. For a start - as a 'cover' artist - he was truly original. I also never knew that he illustrated this book - a staple of my library for many years ...

Read All About It

Love Maps

In his testimony, Plant says he doesn't remember ever hearing the track Taurus. He says: "I didn't remember it then, and I don't remember it now."
Plant says he heard earlier Spirit track Fresh Garbage on a compilation album that he bought in 1968.

Read All About It.

"After throwing the Bowmar under the bus I will not buy any Under Armour product again and will strongly encourage others not to purchase your products, unless you reinstate Sarah Bowmar as a sponsor," Phil Meyer wrote on the company's Facebook page. "For a company to stab hunters in the back after so many of us have used and endorsed your products is intolerable!"

and

"It will be interesting watching your whole hunting line of business go down the toilet," Stan Smyla wrote.

and

A petition to reinstate Sarah Bowmar's sponsorship deal has reached 6,400 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

Read All About it .... seriously 6,400 signatures? I wonder how Under Armour plan to survive !

In the end, even if you think Gawker deserved punishment, media organizations should not face the financial death penalty for a mistake, even a deplorable and egregious one.

Read All About It - The Grauniad weighs in on Gawker.

I mainly agree - but it wasn't a mistake - otherwise Denton could have done something about it way back. Instead he stuck two fingers up and said 'F**K you' - I am the press. We are above you. He was wrong.

... some times sooner than you think

Running through my music feeds this morning. Not one, not two - but three headlines .... jeez.

Former Nine Inch Nails Keyboardist James Woolley Dead at 50

3 Doors Down ex Matt Roberts dead at 38

Architects guitarist Tom Searle dies of cancer aged 28

RIP - all of you.

Post Script ... interesting how many names we do not relly know that provide so many emotional touchpoints in our lives.

Buddy Guy was on the same bill as Beck - and guess who did a surprise appearance?

one more

and another

I wish I had been there ..... but thankfully my friend Bill was - who had a friend Keith who took the pictures. In case you are wondering ... Row 7, Masonic Hall, San Francisco.

Click through if you want to extend your Cards Against Humanity set ... this is why you should ...

Today, we're letting America choose between two new expansion packs about either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

... so far so good.

At the end of this promotion, Cards Against Humanity will tally up the sales of both packs, and depending on which pack gets more support ....

.. yes

we will donate all the money in support of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

#BRILLIANT

Uber removing the Yellow Cab option for their app ?

Of course they are.

This makes for a fascinating listen .... Malcolm Gladwell in his Revisionist History Podcast talking about the 'sudden acceleration' problems that Toyota faced in 2009. His conclusion - operator error.

Seriously - and you have to listen to the podcast to get it - after all - you wouldn't expect me to summarize the closing arguments of Perry Mason in a couple of paragraphs - would you ?

Beyond this though, it made me stop and think about driverless cars.

As they get involved n collisions, people - despite any and all evidence to the contrary - will assume that there has been some kind of machine error that caused the accident, before they think it could be a person's fault.

That is the essence of the Gladwell argument. It will happen.

The home and personal editions are clearly being primed to become advertising platforms. Ad blockers will not help because it will be OS itself serving ads, not the browser you chose (or the one MS chose for for you, see above on defaults).
And it's not just the home editions. I ran the SpyBot Anti-Beacon on a Windows 10 Enterprise build, and was shocked to see about 80% of the Telemetry* settings still sending data back to the mother-ship.

In case you are wondering - click through for the detail - but bottom line ... if this pans out - then Microsoft is in the process of launching the mother of all trackers - embedded in their OS.

We live in 2016. Jobs declared Flash dead a little over 6 years ago. Google plans to start blocking Flash in Chrome this year. So why in the name of satan does Prezi - the hipsters answer to presentations - tell me that I need it to run their app.