Full-time Geeks Shouldn't Ignore Physical Impact

Big companies, especially the Web giants, have made taking care of their best geeks a major part of what they offer, with improved meals, wellness centers, massages and all matter of ergonomics. But not everyone works at these big companies, locked away in bland cubicles or fluorescent-lit dungeons. In the absence of someone else taking care of you, you need to do it. For years, I've put up with people asking 'how I hurt my wrists' or if I have carpal tunnel, and the answer is that I don't, and I'd bet a major reason I don't is because I made sure early to avoid it. As your doctor will tell you, preventative care is the best kind there is, so don't forget to take care of yourself. I just bought a new pair of wrist supports today.

Can't Stop Social Media-Driven UK Riots? Go After Social Media-Driven Water Gun Fights | Techdirt

As #UK politicians and law enforcement still argue over things like blocking access to social media or shutting down Blackberry Messenger during times of riots and/or protests, it seems that some UK police know when to just jump right in. They've arrested and charged a guy for daring to organize a water gun fight using Blackberry messenger and Facebook.

As Governments Get Censorship Happy, New Technologies Popping Up To Route Around That

We've been discussing more and more movements from various governments towards censoring the internet, whether it's things as simple as 'filters' of 'bad sites' or more recent efforts by governments to shut down speech they don't like from people they don't like. However, as tends to be the case, technology seems to quickly come to the rescue. Late last week a new effort from J. Alex Halderman started to get some attention. Called Telex, it's a system for getting around internet censorship on a massive level, by using a variety of distributed nodes and disguising the type of traffic being sent over them.

Cisco Sued By Chinese Political Prisoners Over 'Golden Shield'

#Cisco, one of the world's largest technology companies, is being sued by Chinese political prisoners for allegedly providing the technology and expertise used by the Chinese Communist Party to monitor, censor and suppress the Chinese people.

Some Old Guy Can't Come Up With Any New Ideas; So He Says There Are No New Ideas & It's Twitter's Fault

Quite a week for the luddites out there. First we get Rob Levine's silly screed about the internet killing off a bunch of industries that are actually thriving. And now we have the NY Times publishing absolute tripe from Neal Gabler, bizarrely and ridiculously claiming that the age of 'big ideas' is over, and it's all the fault of Twitter and Facebook. It's incredible that the NY Times would publish such absolute garbage. Nowhere does Gabler actually support his thesis.

Police Try To Bring Wiretapping Charges Against Woman Who Filmed Them Beating A Man

You would think that Sedergren, who was suspended for 45 days for his actions in the video, would know better and just get on with his life. Instead, he's 'filed an application for a criminal complaint' against Greene, saying she violated wiretapping laws in filming him without his permission. Everyone involved knows the law is not intended for situations like this, where an officer of the law is out in public. If this officer's response to being filmed involved in questionable activities is to push for criminal charges against the person who caught him doing it, it seems like he does not deserve to be an officer of the law at all any more. What a massive abuse of the law.

City of #Cupertino posts further details, renders of #Apple mega-campus

According to the company's plans, the four-story structure, dubbed 'Apple Campus 2,' would comprise approximately 2.8 million square feet. A Corporate Auditorium on the campus would seat 1,000 people, while new Research Facilities would take up 300,000 square feet.

National briefs: 8/14/11

A decision by San Francisco Bay Area transit officials to cut off cell phone service at some of its stations to thwart a planned protest drew an angry response Saturday from one transit board member who said she was shocked that officials acted as 'this type of censor.'

Bay Area Rapid Transit officials have said they shut down power Thursday evening to cellular towers for stations stretching from downtown to San Francisco's airport after learning protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate its demonstration.