California Ancestors Blog: Speak Out Against Exorbitant Fees: Deadline is December 16. “The genealogy world is abuzz with news that U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) has proposed a sharp increase in fees for searches and copies of genealogical and historical records, beginning in 2020…. The records include naturalization certificates, alien registration forms, visa and registry files, and alien files (A-Files), all invaluable resources for researchers. The bureau already charges a nonrefundable $65 fee per search. It proposes to raise that search fee to an exorbitant $240—an increase of 269 percent.”
stupidness
New York Times: Cruise Line Bars Woman Who Climbed on Balcony Railing for Selfie
New York Times: Cruise Line Bars Woman Who Climbed on Balcony Railing for Selfie. “A photograph taken this week on a Caribbean cruise ship quickly gained widespread attention but it wasn’t of a pink-sand beach, a zip-lining adventure or an onboard skydiving simulator. It was of a woman standing on a balcony railing of her stateroom on one of the world’s largest cruise ships — posing for a selfie.”
Betches: A Company Shamed An Applicant For Her IG Pic & It’s Backfiring Spectacularly
Betches: A Company Shamed An Applicant For Her IG Pic & It’s Backfiring Spectacularly. “Yesterday started out just like any other mediocre American Tuesday. Birds were singing, politicians were tweeting, and millennials around the country were trying to find jobs that would help them pay off their thousands of dollars in student loan debt while simultaneously not making them want to die (aka: the dream).”
Boing Boing: Announcement of Tumblr’s sale to WordPress classified as pornography by Tumblr’s notorious “adult content” filter
Boing Boing: Announcement of Tumblr’s sale to WordPress classified as pornography by Tumblr’s notorious “adult content” filter. “The filter is a piece of unadulterated, unsalvageable garbage. Its awfulness is hard to overstate, but it can be neatly illustrated by this Bruce Sterling post, which reveals that the Tumblr porn filter blocked Sterling’s post of a screenshot of a news story about the acquisition, which includes the happy coda, ‘This decision cannot be appealed.'”
VentureBeat: E3 organization leaks data for over 2,000 journalists and analysts
VentureBeat: E3 organization leaks data for over 2,000 journalists and analysts. “This failure to adequately secure sensitive data doesn’t just expose games journalists. I’ve confirmed with someone who has access to the list (with the ESA’s permission) that it contains info for YouTube creators, Wall Street financial analysts at firms like Wedbush and Goldman Sachs, and Tencent employees.”
Boing Boing: Sony’s copyright bots remove a band’s own release of its new video
Boing Boing: Sony’s copyright bots remove a band’s own release of its new video. “The Sheffield-based experimental music act 65daysofstatic has a new album coming out in September, called ‘Replicr, 2019.’ Today, the band began its launch publicity by releasing a video from the album, only to have the video blocked on multiple services by copyright bots working on behalf of Sony, which distributed the band’s label, Superball.”
New York Times: Accused of ‘Terrorism’ for Putting Legal Materials Online
New York Times: Accused of ‘Terrorism’ for Putting Legal Materials Online. “Carl Malamud believes in open access to government records, and he has spent more than a decade putting them online. You might think states would welcome the help. But when Mr. Malamud’s group posted the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, the state sued for copyright infringement. Providing public access to the state’s laws and related legal materials, Georgia’s lawyers said, was part of a ‘strategy of terrorism.'”
