Nuclear Monster

  • Money in the Bank

    The decades-old institution of civil asset forfeiture just got amazingly worse through the new practice of  seizing cash in bank accounts at a whim without any due process:

    Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards.

    It’s called an ERAD, or Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machine, and state police began using 16 of them last month.  

    Here’s how it works. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.

    […]

    News 9 obtained a copy of the contract with the state. 

    It shows the state is paying ERAD Group Inc., $5,000 for the software and scanners, then 7.7 percent of all the cash the highway patrol seizes.  

    Yow.

    Also, this is the second website I’ve seen today that still requires Flash to watch their videos. Chrome makes an OK sandbox for that garbage but everyone should stop supporting it. 

  • Online DRM-free retailer Gog announced Gog Connect. Gog Connect connects your Gog account to your Steam account and receive DRM-free Gog versions of some games if you already have them on Steam.

    The list of supported games is short at just 23 currently, but Gog have said they will change the list up frequently by adding games and removing old ones. Unfortunately you will need to revisit the Gog Connect page when new games are added in order to receive DRM-free Gog copies.

  • E. Fylladitakis writing for Anandtech has this excellent review of the Corsair Lapdog. It is either the best or worst possible name for a product that connotates this:
    an actual dog that might fit on your lap if it deigns you worthy

    …but is actually this keyboard and mouse ergonomic nightmare for playing FPS games on a couch the right way:

    the corsair lapdog will let anyone put it on its lap

    Although it looks cool, it is actually going to cost you upwards of $200. $120 for the Lapdog, and a bunch more for the mouse and keyboard since only two Corsair keyboard models are going to fit. Though you could probably get away with not using a Corsair mouse.

  • Microsoft’s press release:

    Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced plans to streamline the company’s smartphone hardware business, which will impact up to 1,850 jobs. As a result, the company will record an impairment and restructuring charge of approximately $950 million, of which approximately $200 million will relate to severance payments.

    That’s a lot of weasel words to say they’re firing almost two thousand people. 

    “We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation – with enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We will continue to innovate across devices and on our cloud services across all mobile platforms.”

    The weasel wording continues on to say that Microsoft won’t be developing features for actual people with Windows phone devices and will instead focus on what businesses want, which is a shame since Windows phones were better and more secure than Android in many ways.

    Here Microsoft, I streamlined your press press release:

    Our phone business hasn’t been successful with people because we focused on what businesses want. We will continue to focus on businesses by firing almost two thousand people who worked on or supported features that people might want. Regrettably, we will have to pay them money so that they don’t cause a scene.

  • Aleen Mean on the changes coming to Twitter:

    Today Twitter, the microblogging service dedicated to making sure that people can easily be harassed without repercussion, announced some changes they’re planning on rolling out over the next few months. True to their mission, these new features are sure to promote not only harassment, but spamming from both malicious accounts and #brands trying to #engage their audience.

    […]

    Time and time again, we’ve been told that the company is working on making things better for targets of harassment. What we see, however, are half-baked enhancements designed to make the service more appealing to advertisers and attempts at enticing new users. Many people have suggested changes they could implement to curb abuse. For example, Randi Lee Harper’s list of suggestions from earlier this year is still on-point.

    I know that Twitter is a huge company and that the people who are spending their time and energy on these new features aren’t necessarily the ones who would work on anti-abuse tools, but it’s clear that the company’s leadership is unwilling to actually act.