orangeek's blog

Listen and repeat:
I'll not buy XL anymore.
I'll not buy XL anymore.
I'll not buy XL anymore.

In summer, when I'm not home and I'm not traveling (like this year), I read a lot. Really. Just take a look somewhere on the right column of the blog and you'll find my readings in these days. I'm addicted: I go in a bookshop and I begin turning my head around, looking for something that could be interesting, and I finish buying 5/6 books at once. Last month, preparing for the huge spare time I'd have in August, I bought a lot of books but it turned out they are too few. I'm running out of books. :)

Btw, since I don't want to read books all day long, I buy also newspapers and magazines; yesterday I was in a shop and saw two different issues of XL; while thinking "yeah, it's a long time I don't read that magazine, let me take a look", I picked one copy (the one with some comic on the cover) and came back home.

God, it really sucks. A lot of garbage, adv and... horrible comics. The damn magazine is full of non-sense, poor-designed (most of them) comics.

How can you even sell that shit??

I'll not buy XL anymore.
I'll not buy XL anymore.
I'll not buy XL anymore.

Even if I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere (Sicily, actually), I do know that our italian government made a deal with the local ISPs to block the domain of The Pirate Bay.

Even if I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, please, government, go fuck yourself.

Or better:

ite tutti a stroncarvelo nder culo.

in the meantime, please take a look here.

Just for the record: I'm in the middle of nowhere, having few opportunities to blog. 

I already know you'll not give a fuck to that. :)

Finally we get an official position.

We already heard that DHS (US Department of Homeland Security) was seizing laptops and phones of US passengers. Now the DHS published the procedure (warning: PDF link), that permits them

to take your laptop (or any other "digital or analogic" device, capable to save data), make a copy of "all your data", keep them for "a reasonable amount of time", "share them with other agencies, subjects or party" in order to obtain assistance for "language translation, decryption or any other reasons".

[ "life and the pursuit of happiness", CC picture by shoothead ]

Some comments: Bruce Schneier, Slashdot, Washington Post.

How to deal with the laptop seizures: Lifehacker's, Electronic Frontier Foundation's and Bruce Schneier tips.

Be advised: you can even encrypt your data but the DHS-ignorant-cowboys-guys could ask you for password to decrypt them. According to EFF (see link above)

If you don't want to comply, CBP cannot force you to decrypt your data or give over your password. Only a judge can force you to answer questions, and then only if the Fifth Amendment does not apply. While no Fifth Amendment right protects the data on your laptop or phone, one federal court has held that even a judge cannot force you to divulge your password when the act of revealing the password shows that you are the person with access to or control over potentially incriminating files.

Did you see any analogies with Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" fiction book? Well, they are.

"They'll take Manhattan, in Cash" :this is the title of the New York Times.

"They" are the Europeans, who are taking over New York thanks to high value of Euro Currency against US Dollars. NYTimes writes 

Their party is raging just as the hangover has started to set in for Americans. Frictions do arise — especially in a summer of looming recession, where many locals do not feel rich enough or secure enough to travel abroad themselves. (And let’s not even get into their weeks of summer vacation).

Yes, we may raid your stores - thinking at those as "our personal Candyland", dressed "in sneakers and bike shorts" but do not blame us: you, americans, in the ol' days, have been way worse.

[ "Smokin' shot", CC picture by dariuzka ]

At least we have style. :)

Mmmh, by the way: I'm planning to visit New York in the next October. Not sure yet, but likely.

[ via Consumerist ]