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☆ Want You To Know: Sussudio

Wazzupp Internet?

Doctors and trolls are doing battle in the depths of the Internet. At the moment it seems the trolls are winning. Perhaps the doctors would have more success if they built a new Twitter and let the trolls frolic there. The US government tried something similar with 'Cuban Twitter'. Zun-Zun-Zuneo (to be sung to the tune of 'Sussudio' by Phil Collins).

USAID, in trying to harass the Cuban government, wound up financially supporting it. As the world has learned in the past year, you can’t talk about freedom of expression online without talking about the integrity of the infrastructure that channels that expression. Over the past year, Americans have learned how much of our own Internet infrastructure is compromised.

/b/ have apparently launched an attack on the World Cup. Seems to be as aimless as many of /b/'s recent projects.

Twitter employees are certainly loyal and know how to get the brand out there no matter what the situation. Claire Diaz-Otiz live-tweeted the birth of her daughter yesterday. Above and beyond the call of duty folks.

Regarding Ireland

Mmmm, Eye Candy

Tetris on a skyscraper. Yellow sticky notes | Canadian Anijam, a collaborative animation

Shakespeare plays as three panel comics.

Totally Confused

Whale poop, #riotselfie, swearing as a foreign language , Sherlock Holmes and Intelligent Design and tour the British Isles in accents.

Today's cover version of David Bowie's 'Heroes / Helden' is by Janelle Monae

☆ Want You To Know: Whatever Happened To ‘Winter Is Coming’?

Game of Thrones returns for it's fourth season this weekend. It seems old habits die hard and 'sexposition' is still an important narrative device. If you've forgotten what's happened up until now, here's a decent recap. As that one is in traditional text format, for good measure here's a recap that uses emoji. 14 most brutal deaths in Game of Thrones as 8-bit GIFs. And finally, 'If The Media Reported The Events Of "Game Of Thrones"'.

Internet

Crowdfunding game of the day: Kickstarter simulator 2015.

Glass is 'merely descriptive', so no patent for you, Google. At least not yet. Yelp reviews might be a bit dodgy. As if that possibility has never occurred to anyone before.

At the start of this week I had heard the name James Franco, but didn't really know who he was. Then the Internet told me he was mostly a creep, and who was I to disagree? Now, at the end of this week it turns out he just has some product to promote.

Local flavour alert. An Irish Farmer's Journal piece about the County Kildare geep is spreading rapidly ('going viral', as many twits are still fond of saying).

To Ponder, Or Not To Ponder?

Very Important Documentary Film

'Catnip: Egress to Oblivion?' [YT]

Art Corner

George Bush paints other world leaders.

JENNA: You think you got to the soul of you?

GEORGE: You're going to have to ask other people who know me better, such as yourself. This is an improvement of the first one I did of myself.

'Two Monks Invent Renaissance Art'

Totally Confused, Mostly Long Video Edition

Books versus movies, Tyrion Lanister slapping Joffrey for ten hours, shrinking women, Hurtigruten timelapse, and fifty years of James Bond.

Cover version of the day: 'Wave of Mutilation', Kristin Hersh

☆ Want You To Know: More Cats Than Expected

Somehow, this ended up with much more feline involvement than originally planned. Guaranteed not to happen again until at least some time next week.

Well Played, Metro, Well Played

Medical first as cats are found to pass TB on to their owners

This Can’t Possibly End Well

Things To Ponder

Relevant: long list of facts about cats, compiled by (who else) Buzzfeed.

Why did this sad remix of Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ take so long to appear?

Inscrutable To Most, Headlines Department

It occurred to me that plenty of the headlines I scan daily would probably have made no sense twenty years ago. Here’s a selection (which are all worth reading, I hasten to add).

Mobile Malware Mines Dogecoins and Litecoins for Bitcoin Payout

The coin-mining apps discussed above were found outside of the Google Play store, but we have found the same behavior in apps inside the Google Play store. These apps have been downloaded by millions of users, which means that there may be many Android devices out there being used to mine cryptocurrency for cybercriminals.

Lichdom: Battlemage’s powerful spells channel Borderlands and Dark Souls

Xaviant’s vision for Lichdom is to deliver a game in which the mage isn’t always the “glass cannon” in the back, the fellow that’s capable of doing massive damage but then gets fragged if something dangerous so much as looks his way.

Facebook recruits NASA boffins for robot drone fleet, laser comms lab

The Connectivity Lab plans to use solar-powered drones and satellites fitted with communications gear to relay internet access to areas of medium and low population density, along with new laser-based technologies to create a high-bandwidth transmission network.

Good stuff, right?

Longer Reads

‘Cos it’s almost the weekend.

‘Billionaire Ball’ by Matt Hinton. The excesses of sports departments in US universities. The figures involved are staggering.

Malcolm Harris skewers what he describes as “Actually Journalism”. FiveThirtyEight.com and Vox.com are his primary targets. More criticism of FiveThirtyEight from climate scientists.

What Seems To Be The Problem Here? is the latest instalment in n+1’s series of investigative pieces on Amazon. Ruth Curry of Emily Books gives a lot of insight into what Amazon has done to not just the publishing business but the entire online retailing industry. The prospect of the drones becomes ever more terrifying.

If you’re a millionaire model, YOU TOO can get government funding for your barely fleshed out charity idea. Lily Cole managed to get £200,000 from the Cabinet Office in the UK for a goods and services exchange website whose only currency is love, or thanks, or rainbows, or something.

It’s not unusual for wealthy celebrities, particularly in the fashion world, to support good causes or have whimsical hobbies. What makes Impossible.com highly unusual is that it received support from the taxpayer. And nobody seems quite sure why.

House ♫

The trailer [YT] for forthcoming documentary The House That Chicago Built is worth a look if you enjoy seeing a lot of normally garrulous types lost for words. The film itself is directed by Lil Louis incidentally.

Totally Confused

We demand a hot dog emoji, an end to chemical warfare in the swimming pool, no more bling bishops, less rubbish on the mountain and more bad Reddit AMAs.