Weird News Stories part2

[Raithe]

io9 - Comic Artist uses DMCA to bully Escher Girls

 

 

Comic Artist Uses DMCA to Bully Escher Girls

 

Randy Queen is a comic book artist with... a not great understanding of female anatomy. This landed several of his works on Escher Girls, the tumblr blog that highlights and critics (and sometimes offers redraws) of ridiculous and needlessly sexualized depictions of female characters (hence the name, and which io9 has featured before).

 

So, instead of taking heed of said criticism (and it's sad that no one has screenshots of the taken down posts because they would have been on point) he files some tenuous DMC takedown notices to Tumblr. Which complies, no questions asked. Now, I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure criticism falls under fair use. Techdirt has a good write up of why that is. And tumblr has not only taken down reposts of Randy Queen's comic art, but also redraws - works that (to my mind) belong to whoever did the redrawing.

 

Not content with misusing the law once, this guy has since also threatened Escher Girls with defamation for posting about his DMCA takedown notices (because saying that something that happened happened is now "defamation"), and claiming a very bogus "right to protect the perception of my IP." Which doesn't exist. Ever.

 

(And in spite of his whining about art from 15 years ago, I either can't find anything more recent from him or his style and understanding of said human anatomy has not changed significantly.)

 

As Popehat always says, "vagueness in legal threats is a hallmark of meritless thuggery."

So this post is just me doing my bit to acquaint Randy Queen with the Streisand Effect.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

http://gawker.com/baptist-church-leader-arrested-for-soliciting-dog-sex-o-1617858449

[Malcador]

http://invisiblegirlfriend.com/

 

A new app lets you build a virtual girlfriend to convince even your most skeptical friends that you are not alone, even though you are, in fact, so alone that you’re going to extreme lengths to hide it.

 

Invisible Girlfriend was cooked up by “a team of web developers, creators, entrepreneurs, and romance experts,” according to the website, in order to give people “real-world and social proof that you’re in a relationship — even if you’re not — so you can get back to living life on your own terms.”

 

That proof includes text messages, as well as photos and a complete backstory on how the relationship started. The service is currently in beta but will launch with three different pricing plans. For $10 a month, lonely men (and this is undoubtedly aimed at straight men) can receive text messages, automated phone calls and an “emergency interaction button” that summons the invisible girlfriend to rescue any conversation focusing too closely on the woman’s continued absence. The $50 package includes even more subterfuge, including “getting serious” benefits, which are not explained.

 

As for why such a service needs to exist at all, Invisible Girlfriend’s creators say it’s about relieving the pressure of having to be coupled.

http://o.canada.com/technology/invisible-girlfriend-app-498812#.U-uj7yHwz7Q.twitter

[ShadySands]

Woman Confesses To Filming Porn In Church After Tipster Recognizes Her Breasts

 

This isn't your run-of-the-mill confession.

 

A woman in Austria admitted to filming a pornographic video inside a church after a tipster recognized her breasts.

 

In a video posted online, the woman, whose face is not shown, undoes her top and caresses her breasts while holding what appears to be a Bible and a rosary. The New York Daily News reported that at least two porn videos featuring the same woman were filmed at the same church in June.

 

According to the Austrian Times, Bernhard Pauer, a priest with the Diocese of Linz, went to police after parishioners said they recognized their church in the video.

 

After the footage was screened on local television, a tipster came forward and said he recognized the woman's breasts. Horsching police were then able to track down the 24-year-old amateur video star, who confessed. She now faces charges of offending religious feeling and desecration of a church.

 

Police confirmed that the woman didn't have permission to film inside the church. After some debate, it was decided that the church would not have to be reconsecrated.

 

[Keyrock]

 

Woman Confesses To Filming Porn In Church After Tipster Recognizes Her Breasts

 

This isn't your run-of-the-mill confession.

 

A woman in Austria admitted to filming a pornographic video inside a church after a tipster recognized her breasts.

 

In a video posted online, the woman, whose face is not shown, undoes her top and caresses her breasts while holding what appears to be a Bible and a rosary. The New York Daily News reported that at least two porn videos featuring the same woman were filmed at the same church in June.

 

According to the Austrian Times, Bernhard Pauer, a priest with the Diocese of Linz, went to police after parishioners said they recognized their church in the video.

 

After the footage was screened on local television, a tipster came forward and said he recognized the woman's breasts. Horsching police were then able to track down the 24-year-old amateur video star, who confessed. She now faces charges of offending religious feeling and desecration of a church.

 

Police confirmed that the woman didn't have permission to film inside the church. After some debate, it was decided that the church would not have to be reconsecrated.

 

 

She's either gotta have some kind of tattoo or birthmark on her breasts or really really nice breasts that would stick in your memory.  Here's hoping it's the latter.

[Gfted1]

 

 

After some debate, it was decided that the church would not have to be reconsecrated.

 

That's hilarious.

[ManifestedISO]

"The finest known copy of the most sought-after comic book in the world ..."

 

Current ebay bid for Action Comics #1, 1938, CGC Rating 9.0, featuring the introduction of Superman, $1,750,200. Seven days left, hurry. 

 

 

[Agiel]

Grand Ayatollah of Iran issues Fatwa against high-speed internet:

 

http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2014/08/makarem-internet/

 

Khamenei: "No HD porn streaming for you! Come back one year!"

[Amentep]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/11060282/Brazils-valley-of-beauties-appeals-for-single-men.html

 

 

Brazil’s valley of beauties appeals for single men

 

Brazil’s valley of beauties appeals for single men

Women of Noiva do Cordeiro, deep in the countryside of south-east Brazil, where men are scarce or work far away in the city, are left to shoulder the town’s burdens alone

Edited September 4, 2014 by Amentep

[Lexx]

After the news broke out, they are probably getting swarmed by horny men.

[Malcador]

Obviously this is a trap

[Hurlshort]

Obviously this is a trap

 

[ManifestedISO]

Super cool new galactic data visualization maps. The red dot is the Milky Way. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rENyyRwxpHo

[Raithe]

io9 - Russia Building a Star Fort on a Strategic Arctic Island
 

 
For decades, Wrangel Island has been classified as a nature preserve. Situated in the icy Chukchi Sea which flows between the Russian and Alaskan coasts, this quiet, hilly island is now home to a rapidly-growing Russian military base comprised of "prefabricated modules" arranged in a star formation.

It sounds a lot like the kinds of star forts that were a popular form of defense during the age of gunpowder warfare in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Moscow Times is reporting that this is part of President Putin's plan to remilitarize the Arctic, bringing its defenses in the region back up to Cold War levels. But unlike bases planted in this remote area during the Cold War, the Wrangel Island installation won't just be for guarding the border. It could become a major part of new trade routes that will be established in the area as the ice cap melts away. Plus, it will be used to coordinate mining operations.

Essentially, this base and a matching one on shore at Cape Schmidt (see red marker on map below) will secure Russia's economic interests in the region.
 
The Moscow Times reports:

President Vladimir Putin in April stepped up his commitment to the region, calling for the creation of a unified command structure to coordinate military operations in the Arctic and create a new government entity to execute Russia's policy in the region.

Putin sees control of the Arctic as a matter of serious strategic concern for Moscow. Below the Arctic lies vast stockpiles of largely untapped natural resource reserves; estimates vary, but the more optimistic ones put the undiscovered reserves of oil and gas in the Arctic at 13 and 30 percent of the world's total, respectively.

Russia is vying for control of the region's oil, gas and rare metals with the other "polar nations" — Canada, Denmark, Norway and the U.S. — leading many observers to point at the region as one of the world's most volatile flashpoints.

It sounds like the plot of a Tobias Buckell novel. What could go wrong?

[Raithe]

And in somewhat similar vein...
 
io9 - China is Mass Producing Islands
 
 

 

A dramatic change is taking place in the South China Sea where, since the beginning of this year, Beijing has created at least five new islands by dredging rock and sand and pumping it into reefs to form new land. By doing so, the Chinese are sending a blunt message to its neighbors and the U.S.: Keep out.

 

As a BBC News special report notes, China's island building is aimed at addressing what it views as a serious strategic deficit:

 

There are many competing claims to territory in the South China Sea, but only China and Taiwan claim to own it all.

Beijing's claim….is marked out on its own maps by the infamous "nine-dash line", which encompasses a huge tongue-shaped expanse stretching right up to the coasts of the Philippines and Vietnam and even Borneo.

 

For decades China has done little to enforce its vague and sweeping claim. Now that is changing.

In 2012 the Communist Party reclassified the South China Sea as a "core national interest", placing it alongside such sensitive issues as Taiwan and Tibet. It means China is prepared to fight to defend it.

 

This is confirmed by Prof Yan Xuetong of Beijing's Tsinghua University— a pro-government academic well known for presenting the Communist Party's view to the outside world.

China will fight, he says, if it feels its sovereignty in the South China Sea is under threat

.

 

China's land grab at sea is primarily directed at its main strategic rival, the United States. As the U.S. Pacific Fleet continues to sail regularly through the South Chinese Sea, the Chinese Navy has become more assertive. Last December, it dispatched its new aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, to shadow the U.S. Navy cruiser, USS Cowpens. A Chinese amphibious assault ship approached and ordered it to leave the area. The commander of the Cowpens refused, saying he was sailing in "international waters."

 

At that point the U.S. Navy says the Chinese ship suddenly swung across the Cowpens' bow, just 1,600 feet ahead, forcing the cruiser to take evasive action.

 

According to the BBC, China appears to be preparing to build an airbase based on one of these new islands — Johnson South Reef (photo above) — with a concrete runway long enough for fighter jets to take off and land:

 

In 1823, US President James Monroe outlined what was later to become known as the "Monroe Doctrine."

It identified the Western hemisphere as America's backyard, and nowhere more so than the Caribbean Sea. Old European colonial powers were told to keep out.

 

Today China is doing something very similar in the East and South China seas.

 

Everything inside the so-called "first island chain"— which stretches north in a curvin

g line from the coast of Borneo, past Taiwan to southern Japan— is, in Beijing's opinion, China's backyard. Beijing's ambition is to dominate this sea-space and, ultimately, to deny access to the only other naval power in the world that can prevent China from doing so.

 

Meanwhile, the Philippines, which also has claims in the South China Sea and is rather alarmed by Beijing's actions, is taking the case to the United Nations. It wants a ruling based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which typically gives coastal states an exclusive economic zone up to 200 nautical miles from their coastline. But China has already announced that it will not be bound by any UN rulings.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Raithe

[Humanoid]

io9 - Russia Building a Star Fort on a Strategic Arctic Island

 

For more than a year, ominous rumors had been privately circulating among high-level Western leaders that the Soviet Union had been at work on what was darkly hinted to be the ultimate weapon: a doomsday device. Intelligence sources traced the site of the top secret Russian project to the perpetually fog-shrouded wasteland below the Arctic peaks of the Zhokhov Islands. What they were building or why it should be located in such a remote and desolate place no one could say.

[Gfted1]

Report: Woman has surgery to get a third breast, hopes to become a TV star.

 

All I can say is thank god for science!

[JadedWolf]

Report: Woman has surgery to get a third breast, hopes to become a TV star.

 

All I can say is thank god for science!

 

This will start a trend, I reckon. Soon we will hear of the octobreast woman. Anything is fair to get your fifteen minutes of fame these days, it seems.

 

 

Edited September 22, 2014 by JadedWolf

[Gfted1]

Screw Cars, Meet the Google Street View Camel

[Wrath of Dagon]

Solar tower cancelled because it incinerates birds : http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/10/09/Solar%20Company-Drops-Project-Incinerating-Birds-Bad-for-Business

[Lexx]

Well, at least they dropped it and didn't forced that thing through no matter what.

[Gfted1]

Sleeping sperm whales look so eerie and magical.

[Gorth]

Thread necromancy!

 

(or the secret life of the search function)

 

Hitlers Secret Weapon

 

Nazi Cows

 

"A farmer in Devon has been forced to slaughter half his herd of Heck cows after they repeatedly tried to attack his farm workers.

 

Farmer Derek Gow said that the Heck cow descended from cattle specifically bred by Nazi scientists between the world wars. The Heck cow was renowned for its fearsome horns and extremely aggressive nature. "

 

Bovine undercover agents? Cow catapults firing insidious ordinance at the UK during WWII?

[Serrano]

Thread necromancy!

 

(or the secret life of the search function)

 

Hitlers Secret Weapon

 

Nazi Cows

 

"A farmer in Devon has been forced to slaughter half his herd of Heck cows after they repeatedly tried to attack his farm workers.

 

Farmer Derek Gow said that the Heck cow descended from cattle specifically bred by Nazi scientists between the world wars. The Heck cow was renowned for its fearsome horns and extremely aggressive nature. "

 

Bovine undercover agents? Cow catapults firing insidious ordinance at the UK during WWII?

Could this be the first Stick in Truth DLC?