9/11
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Facebook will host a paid movie premiere this month
A documentary about the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum will debut on the platform on August 19th.
Hitting the Books: How legendary hackers wound up working for the CIA
Welcome to Hitting the Books. With less than one in five Americans reading just for fun these days, we've done the hard work for you by scouring the internet for the most interesting, thought provoking books on science and technology we can find and delivering an easily digestible nugget of their stories.
YouTube's fact checking linked the Notre Dame fire to 9/11
YouTube's fact check panels were supposed to help debunk conspiracy theories, but they just backfired in an unfortunate fashion. The internet giant has disabled the algorithmically-provided panels on live videos of the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral fire after at least one video displayed a fact panel for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, implying that the coverage was a fake news story about the New York City tragedy.
Hackers claim to have insurance data linked to 9/11 attacks
The hackers who stole Orange is the New Black are back, and they've hit a new low. The group known as TheDarkOverlord claims to have stolen 18,000 documents from Hiscox Syndicates, Lloyds of London and Silverstein Properties, and threatened to release files providing "answers" for 9/11 attack "conspiracies" unless it received a ransom. A Hiscox spokesperson confirmed the hack to Motherboard and indicated that this was likely insurance data tied to litigation involving the terrorist campaign.
Uwe Boll responds to 9/11 'Postal' criticism, pats himself on back
The internet went ballistic over a teaser clip from schlock director Uwe Boll's coming film adaptation of schlock video game Postal. The clip seems to poke fun at the 9/11 attacks in a hamfisted, stupid way. A truly talented person can find humor in any tragedy. But is Boll, who directed the film versions of BloodRayne and House of the Dead, that kind of talent? The answer, clearly, is no. Boll disagrees.In his response to criticism over the clip, Boll self-righteously calls his film a "necessary wake-up call" and compares it to Monty Python's masterpiece, Life of Brian. That's right, a movie based on an utterly boring video game is in the same league as one of the greatest comedy touchstones in history.To call Boll a "bloviating hack" is to insult the English language by referring to him with words and not a series of guttural grunts, obscene gestures, and bodily excretions. But excretions don't really come across that well in a blog. Maybe this "Web 2.0" we keep hearing about will remedy that.
Sept. 11's effect on the coin-op industry
Following up on yesterday's post on the decline of the American arcade, we stumbled across this little bit of soul-searching from Brad Brown, president of coin-op repair and sales shop Worldwide Video. Brown looks back at a rather gloomy 2002 Christmas letter in which he details how the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have impacted the coin-op market. According to Brown, the attacks made "a tremendous amount of people want to stay home and entertain themselves," going out only to places that "do not require traveling long distances." Coin-op users in 2002 tended to leave the house only for "very specific events or events that usually include a multitude of activities along with 'we just happen to be there' coin-op game entertainment," Brown said. Years without an attack on American soil may have mitigated these effects, but these days Brown reflects that the "relative down cycle / blip upon our industry that has proven to last far longer and deeper than I would have anticipated." We don't doubt his first-hand experience, but we've also started noticing that those darn, impossible-to-beat Stacker machines are popping up all over the place, so maybe things are turning around. We'll put the question to you -- does the threat of terrorism make you less likely to seek out video game outside the comforts of your own home? [Via Insert Credit]
BenQ apologizes for WTC ads, kind of
So Ben Chu, BenQ America's President, has apparently sent out an apology letter to people who wrote in to complain about the totally tasteless WTC ad from the other day. While we'd have liked to have seen BenQ be a little more forthright with its apologies and maybe send them to, say, media outlets that covered the flub, at least Ben was kind enough to draft a boilerplate and send it en masse to the offended. Thanks. Text after the break.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
BenQ uses WTC & 9/11 imagery to sell devices
We're not exactly what you'd call sanctimonious -- we try not to take ourselves or what we're doing too seriously -- but we feel obligated to call BenQ out for using an image of a crumbled World Trade Center in an ad for its new MusiQ campaign. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they don't understand how wrong it is to use the imagery of 9/11 to push products, but ultimately what they're doing is simply not acceptable. BenQ, do us all a favor, focus on your namesake ("Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to life") and don't ever try to be this kind of "hopeful" again.
HDTV Listings for September 11, 2006
What we're watching: "Never forget" is certainly being held true, first and foremost there is a presidential address today at 9 p.m. (apparently not in HD according to the listings although it often is) so adjust your DVRs accordingly. Many networks are running something 9/11/01related, whether it is ABC's controversial (and not-HD, despite being listed as such on their website) Path to 9/11, HDNet's Slammin' Iron following steelworkers in the rebuilding effort, or Discovery HD airing The Flight that Fought Back followed by Ted Koppel: The Price of Security. Of course, if you're not all football'd out for this weekend (and who ever is?), there is a Monday Night Football doubleheader featuring the Vikings at Redskins followed by Chargers at Raiders. INHD2 has something we haven't seen before (now that many of us don't have it) with On the Run: The Elusive Mr. Wee as law enforcement tracks a fugitive posing as a successful businessman.Update: As Rob reminded us below, Wheel of Fortune & Jeopardy kick off their HD broadcasts tonight as well, however, like Star Trek, you probably won't be able to see them in HD yet because most stations don't have the ability to store a syndicated high definition show.Our traditional high-def listings continue below
Europeans working on anti-hijacking software
Even though air travel has gotten marginally safer since the tragedies of 9/11 -- thanks in part to fortified cockpits, increased air marshal presence, and a ban on toenail clippers -- it still doesn't seem impossible for a group of determined individuals to hijack a plane and turn it into a deadly missile. And should such a suicide-style attack happen again, the only surefire way of protecting targets on the ground would seem to be shooting the plane out of the air -- a nightmare scenario that no one wants to see. Well, soon airlines may have another, much safer option at their disposal in the form of a software platform being developed by a consortium of 30-odd European businesses and research institutes that would make an aircraft's systems completely unusable in the event of a cockpit breach -- control of the plane would be passed to officials on the ground -- even if one of the hijackers was among the 1337est of hackers. The $45 million program is being spearheaded by Airbus (already big fans of auto-pilot), Siemens, and the Technical University of Munich, with the first results of the collaboration scheduled to be revealed at an October conference in the UK. Here's to hoping that the group comes up with a working solution sooner rather than later, because this is one technology that just can't be deployed quickly enough.
