All stakeholders are welcome to contribute to this consultation. Contributions are particularly sought from consumers, users, authors, performers, publishers, producers, broadcasters, intermediaries, distributors and other service providers, Collective Management Organisations, public authorities and Member States. The objective of this consultation is to gather input from all stakeholders on the review of the EU copyright rules. Read more about Review of the EU copyright rules – Put your word in at the EU now![…]

Superscammer. And relevant when compared to the wolf of wallstreet! http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/the-dark-lord-of-the-internet/355726/?single_page=true

Summarizing 400 studies over the past 60 years, the report concludes that humans perform only “the same as or slightly better than chance.” Given that the TSA has spent almost a billion dollars on the program, that’s a pretty poor record. http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/13/5100702/tsa-screening-works-only-a-little-better-than-chance-according-to This includes extensive studies of the TSA SPOT programme over 2011 & 2012

In 2012 I bought an apartment specifically to rent out on airbnb. I’ve been managing it remotely for the past year. This post includes everything I learned as well as some revenue numbers http://gizmodo.com/i-bought-an-apartment-just-to-rent-it-out-on-airbnb-1458666661/@whitsongordon?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lifehacker%2Ffull+%28Lifehacker%29

The gist is pretty simple: drive traffic to sites via links, recieve money (about $1 per 1000 hits) via their affiliate advertising programmes. http://torrentfreak.com/making-money-from-movie-streaming-sites-an-insiders-story-131019/

What is the world coming to when the largest patent trolls, namely Apple, MS, and Samsung as well as BlackBerry, Cisco, HP, Intel, Yahoo, Google are trying to reign in new EU laws that would make patent trolling easy? Could it be that even they recognise that the patent system is outmoded and harms innovation Read more about Biggest patent trolls worried about EU also becoming patent troll heaven[…]

Bitcoin will be subject to regulation in the US as it gains in popularity. The article below goes into fearmongering about the potential of Bitcoins to be used by criminals, but forgets to mention that ALL currencies are used by criminals. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578374611351125202.html

Considering there is a huge shortage of COBOL programmers, this is an excellent idea! http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/113833/werklozen-gratis-opgeleid-tot-cobol-experts.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Webwereld+%28Webwereld%29

Because sometimes that’s cheaper than a return, if you book with different airlines consumerist

The Global Atlas is the comprehensive information platform on the potential of renewable energy. It provides resource maps from leading technical institutes worldwide and tools for evaluating the technical potential of renewable energies. It can function as a catalyst for policy development and energy planning, and can support investors in entering renewable energy markets. via Read more about IRENA – Global Atlas for Solar & Wind[…]

Two-thirds of millionaires left Britain to avoid 50p tax rate – Telegraph. This has cost the UK GBP7 billion. They have repealed the laws, but the millionaires are not coming back much.

Not using a credit card is becoming a much more viable method over the internet (22% of the overall e-commerce payments), with iDeal and Paypal, but also many other methods used to pay for porn or gambling. Worldpay has made an interactive map showing the predominance of specific alternative currencies per country. Worldpay Globe Data. Read more about Payment alternatives to plastic – an interactive map[…]

That’s a pretty crass threat and bizarre that a US company can do this! Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you’ll be fired | The Digital Home – CNET News.

Apps and websites that use the Google Maps API will soon have to pay $4 per 1,000 visitors Google announced today. There is an allowance for small sites – the first 25,000 map-loads a day are free. Google Maps API now costs $4 per 1,000 requests • The Register.

Basically it’s because econonmists allways calibrate the data – ie. change certain parameters to try to represent reality. Carter proved that even small changes to parameters make huge differences in the predictive power of a model. Economists calibrate and recalibrate their models all the time, leading to worse and worse predictions. Why Economic Models Are Read more about Why Economic Models Are Always Wrong[…]

Analysis: HP – Dial M for mayhem | Reuters. Oops

As for what kinds of tricks the labels use, well, Frascogna notes “breakage fees” of 20%, which are based on breakage rates for vinyl from half a century ago. That CDs don’t break so much and that digital files don’t break at all, doesn’t matter. The labels still try to get a super high breakage Read more about RIAA Accounting: How To Sell 1 Million Albums And Still Owe $500,000[…]

It has decided to roll back a days’ trading as a result of the stolen bitcoins, which were dumped on the market, crashing the value of a single bitcoin. Apparently there wasn’t that much cash involved (only $1000,-) which means that the bitcoin currency isn’t very strong at all. Concurrently, a trojan has been found Read more about Bitcoin crashes slowly and interestingly[…]

Well, this is getting interesting. Last week, we noted that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, alone among the other G8 leaders, questioned today’s copyright laws, suggesting that they did not fit with the times, and pointed out that these century-old laws don’t seem to fit with today’s internet. What the ‘free’ west can learn from ‘oppressive’ Read more about Russian President Proposes Creative Commons-Style Rules Baked Directly Into Copyright[…]