How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election — Say the authors, “Our new research leaves little doubt about whether Google has the ability to control voters. In laboratory and online experiments conducted in the United States, we were able to boost the proportion of people who favored any candidate by between 37 and 63 percent after just one search session. The impact of viewing biased rankings repeatedly over a period of weeks or months would undoubtedly be larger.”
The Bizarre History of ‘All Rights Reserved’ — Ever wonder where it comes from? And if you’re a creator, do you need it? Jonathan Bailey looks at the origins of the phrase.
Google found its own Java libraries “half-ass at best”, needed “another half of an ass”, took Oracle’s APIs — Florian Mueller highlights a humorous bit of evidence in the long running litigation between Oracle and Google.
20th Century Props reopens amid production rebound in L.A. — “20th Century Props stunned the industry in 2009 when it closed its North Hollywood business amid mounting losses that it blamed on the flight of production from L.A. Several L.A. prop houses have closed or laid off employees in recent years as more business left the state. But owner Harvey Schwartz has decided to reopen at a new location in Van Nuys, citing an upswing in production in Southern California that has renewed demand for props used on film and TV shows. Newly expanded film tax credits have enticed four out-of-state TV shows to L.A. The California Film Commission on Tuesday announced that eight studio films also had been selected for tax breaks. ‘Business seems to be coming to town, so it’s looking good in Los Angeles these days,’ Schwartz said.”