24,583 Hurt Locker Downloaders Now Face Piracy Suits

Lawyers representing the producers of The Hurt Locker have identified the IP addresses of 24,583 BitTorrent users who downloaded copies of the Oscar-winning movie and plan to sue the owners of those addresses for copyright violations.

Chinese Hard Labour, Not So Hard.

Who would have thought that virtual mining would be more lucrative than actual mining.
Prisoners at the Jixi labor camp are being forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards will then trade for real money.

Prison bosses make more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing them to do manual labor. There are 300 prisoners forced to play games. They worked 12-hour shifts with the computers never being turned off. The prison bosses could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-£570] a day.

If the inmates can't complete their work quota, they would be punished physically. They would make them stand with their hands raised in the air and after returning to their dormitories the inmates would be beaten with plastic pipes.

This is known as "gold farming", the practice of building up credits and online value through the monotonous repetition of basic tasks in online games such as World of Warcraft. Millions of gamers are willing to pay real money for such in-game credits, which they can use to progress in the online games faster than doing the mining themselves.
Trading of virtual currencies in multiplayer games has become so rampant in China that it is increasingly difficult to regulate. In April, the Sichuan provincial government in central China launched a court case against a gamer who stole credits online worth about 3000rmb.
 
The lack of regulations has meant that even prisoners can be exploited in this virtual world for profit.
It is estimated that 80% of all gold farmers are in China and with the largest internet population in the world there are thought to be 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country.
In 2009 the central government issued a directive defining how fictional currencies could be traded, making it illegal for businesses without licenses to trade.


[Full Article]

Liberty City Gets Google Maps Street View

80,000 Screenshots later, the guys who run GTA4.net have added their latest feature to the interactive GTA IV Google Map.

"All roads are covered, except for a few on/off-ramps that weren't very interesting," writes Adam from GTA4.net. "There's around 3,000 separate panoramas which were stitched together from almost 80,000 in-game screenshots (captured with a script) and the final set of tiles consist of over a million images."

There are apparently some Hidden Easter Eggs scattered throughout the city.

[GTA IV Google Map Street View]
[Full Article]

Starwars or Graduation!

Two seniors at Westfield High School have been suspended for two days with the principal forcing then to miss their graduation.

A choreographed light saber battle  took place in the lunchroom after which they were given a standing ovation by the student body. The administration didn't take as kindly to the stunt claiming it to be dangerous.“They very easily could have hit another student, they could have started something different…someone could have gotten hurt,” said Westfield High School Principal Raymond Broderick.
Since then a Facebook page has been erected calling for them to partake in the graduation now has hundreds of supporters.
The principal says there will be a hearing next week to discuss whether they will be able to walk at graduation.

[Full Article]

Bigfoot!

So the elusive man in a monkey suit, i mean Bigfoot is now living in a log cabin in the woods of Spokane.


This latest footage of said man-in-a-monkey-suit is from the iPhone of Samantha from Spokane, who was hiking with her 2 friends in Downriver Park.

Samantha said she didn't notice Bigfoot until she looked at her video when she got home.

Now Samantha how is it not possible to notice Bigfoot when he was probably 50 yards from you?
It might just be me but something about this just screams FAKE!

[Full Article]

Strong start. Retarded Finish!

[Image: San Mateo County sheriff]

Samuel Kioskli, what were you thinking? How could you have possibly believed that your plan would work?

Now our friend Samuel had come up with what he thought could quite possibly be the most elaborate crime on the planet! Sam worked for the company Diebold, who service ATM's for Bank of America. On the July 4 Sam went to 6 ATM's in San Francisco and 1 in Daly City. Now you might wonder what he did, well he replaced about $200,000 worth of $20 Bills with counterfeits and photocopied bills. Up to this point his plan was a good one, who would have thought to replace the money in the ATM's.

Now we might not be ones to judge, but gaining access to the ATM's with your work access card is never a good move to make. If that wasn't enough, they caught you on the CCTV camera's at all 7 locations!

The next day you 'abandoned you wife and disappeared'. What makes this all worse was that they caught you in Phoenix! 10 months after the theft took place. Why would you go to Phoenix after having basically robbed a bank, and then stayed there for a whole 10 months!

You Sir have be awarded the Badge of Shame. Wear it proud and keep it clean.

  

[Full Article]

It's the Police! Where's the Pot!

If you haven't yet heard, Bitcoin's are a virtual currency that can be used to buy goods and services from those who are willing to accept it. They can even be traded for real money much like exchanging Euro's for Dollar's.

The process of generating Bitcoin's is using you computer to hash files. But the long and short of it is that the program makes your PC run at full load which increases your power consumption.

In the Canadian town of Mission, BC. A bylaw states that town Public Safety Inspection Team's may search home for Pot Growing Operations if you use more than 93 kWh of power per day.

People have started to increase their mining operations to more than just one computer, which common sense dictates, will use more power. After adding more and more computers to the operation their house's eventually use more than 93 kWh per day which alerts the Public Safety Inspection Team.

So far only a few cases have been reported.
I can only imagine what the Police were thinking when they break down the door expecting to make a huge drug bust, but instead find a group of nerds hunched of computers!

[Full Article]
[Image: www.bitcoinminer.com]

Is It Real?

Police were called on Saturday 21 May after a concerned member of the public spotted (through the zoom lens of a camera) what looked to be an escaped white tiger hiding in a field.


Police became aware of the tigers lack of life when the down draft of a Police Helicopter caused the stuffed toy to roll over. Police said they did not know how it got there but was similar to one which would be won at a fair.

"The stuffed toy is being treated as lost property."

During the incident a nearby Golf Course had its members evacuated and a stopped play at the Rose Bowl cricket ground for 20 Minutes as a safety precaution.

"I assumed there was [a tiger] with everything that was going on, but we felt quite safe here."

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[Image: www.bbc.co.uk]

Rapture Day

Rapture Predictor Harold Camping failed to accurately 'guess' predict the day of Rapture, and has decided to give it another go.


Harold said that May 21 was in actual fact the start of it all, and that we would suffer "Destruction and Famine" for 5 months until October 21 when the real Rapture will take place killing us all or even (heaven forbid) making us all Zombies.

This may very well be why CDC have made a
Zombie Preparedness Guide.

So make a note in your calendars:
October 21 - Rapture Day!

[Image: www.solariasun.com]

Zombies....

Recently the CDC have constructed a Zombie Preparedness Guide.

Are the CDC trying to forewarn of an impending Zombie takeover in which the deceased rise from the grave and start hunting for human brains!


The Emergency Kit they suggest everyone keeps in their homes has all

the usual things like:
Water, Food, Medications etc...

But nowhere in the kit do i see Chainsaws or blunt objects like Baseball Bats. If games like Left 4 Dead taught us anything, it's that you can never have enough blunt objects lying around because Baseball Bats don't run out of ammo!

[Image: www.inquisitr.com]