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If I were a journalism professor (a particularly surly and possibly drunk journalism professor) I might be tempted to use this lovely set of journalism warning labels, designed by British comedian Tom Scott, as a teaching tool—encouraging my students to go through various media sources and slap these puppies on the worst offenders. Or—in a moment of deep misanthropy—using them as grading stickers on assignments.

However you wish to use them, the stickers are pretty fabulous. Helpfully, Scott provides a PDF link that will allow you to print off a set super easy.

[Back in 2007]:

Sun released their “free java” source code under the GPLv2 to both win the free software crowd and capture peripheral innovation and bug fixing from the community. For the java standard edition (aka “the cat is out of the bag”) there is an exception to the GPLv2 that makes it “reciprocal” only for the Java platform code itself but not for the user code running on it (or most people wouldn’t even dare touching it with a pole).

But such exception to the GPLv2 is not there for the mobile edition (aka “where the money is”).

This brilliant move allows Sun to play “free software paladin” on one hand and still enjoy complete control of the licensing and income creation for the Java ME platform on mobile and embedded devices on the other (because cell phone makers would rather pay than being forced to release all their code that runs on the phone under the GPLv2… or, in many cases, they can’t even if they wanted to as they don’t own the entire software stack).

[..]

This raised more than one eyebrows, and sure did make me raise mine: how did Google manage to get Sun to license off a platform that could very well kill their own?

Turns out, they didn’t: their move was even smarter than Sun’s.

Today Google released the Android code and I took a serious look at its internals… and found the solution for the licensing problem. It’s called Dalvik and it’s the new name of Sun’s worst nightmares.

Dalvik is a virtual machine, just like Java’s or .NET’s, but it’s Google’s own and they’re making it open source without having to ask permission to anyone (well, for now, in the future expect a shit-load of IP-related lawsuits on this, especially since Sun and Microsoft signed a cross-IP licensing agreement on exactly such virtual machines technologies years ago… but don’t forget IBM who has been writing emulation code for mainframes since the beginning of time).

But Android’s programs are written in Java, using Java-oriented IDEs (it also comes with an Eclipse plugin)… it just doesn’t compile the java code into java bytecode but (ops, Sun didn’t see this one coming) into Dalvik bytecode.

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How the Google/Verizon proposal could kill the internet in 5 years Earlier this week Google and Verizon pledged to uphold a set of network principles that could transform the internet into a husk of its former self. Let’s look down the barrel of the Googlezon* future.

Keep in mind that the two-page Googlezon proposal, which you can read here, isn’t law, though both companies have requested that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) turn it into a formal regulation. Even if it isn’t law, though, Googlezon has stated it will follow the proposal’s principles. And mostly those principles are harbingers of a dystopian media future.

The Onion is spot on, as usual.

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BP was slow to staunch the hemorrhage of oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, but it wasted no time applying vast quantities of the chemical dispersant Corexit. By mid-July, BP had released almost 2 million gallons of the chemical into the Gulf ecosystem.

BP and Corexit manufacturer Nalco claim the chemical reduced damage from the spill, and was as harmless as dish soap.

But dispersants do not lessen the amount of oil in the environment. Rather, they break oil into tiny drops that have different, but not necessarily fewer, toxic properties. After more than three months, the fundamental question lingers: Did Corexit do more harm than good?

Aside from questions about their safety and efficacy, dispersants have proven useful, critics charge. By breaking down the oil, Corexit has made it less visible, disguised the full environmental impact of the spill and helped BP limit its legal and financial liability.

[..]

“The bottom line,” says Hugh Kaufman, an engineer in the field of hazardous waste and emergency response who has worked at the EPA for four decades, “is that the EPA and government reaction documents the fact that dispersants were used to protect the economic health of BP at the expense of the environmental health of the Gulf.”

[Quote]:

PETA was mad at Dodge for running an ad that had a chimpanzee in it, considering the history of abuse monkeys have suffered in the entertainment industry. Not that any happened to this monkey, just to monkeys before it.

[..]

The revision is an act of surreal genius, and a giant finger to PETA pantywringers.

Go watch the old and new version. For a change, there’s an advertiser who gets it!

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A serving US Army officer who told a court he agreed with President Barack Obama that the Guantanamo Bay prison camps should be closed down has been removed from a jury hearing allegations of war crimes against a former child soldier.

Prosecutors claimed the unnamed lieutenant colonel had "pre-conceived" views that might harm their case. But the exclusion of the officer, who had been called to sit as a juror in the controversial military commission trial of Omar Khadr at the US naval base in Cuba, has only added to the perception of prejudice.

Me my Shark and I from Chuck Patterson on Vimeo.

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the day before I shot this video, i was SUP surfing with a couple friends and 2 sharks circled us for about 15 minutes. the next day, i decided to go back out at around the same time and take my GO PRO HD HERO camera mounted on a 10 ft pole and do some exploring.

Sure enough within 5 minutes a 9 ft shark came out of no where and circled twice and slapped his tail on my board before disappearing. then a minute later a 7 ft young juvenile Great White swam circles around me for 12 minutes. It was an unreal experience that I will cherish forever.

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Will we someday have entire orchestras playing iPads?

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Carmack’s demonstration, using the id Tech 5 engine, could possibly be the most impressive tech we’ve seen on the iPhone. Running on the iPhone 4 but easily run on the 3GS, the visuals indeed rivaled anything from the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox, and might even be able to give a few current-gen titles a run for their money.