Supreme Court Denies Kim Dotcom Permission to Appeal
In 2012, file-hosting site Megaupload was shut down by the United States government and founder Kim Dotcom and several associates were arrested in New Zealand. For the past seven years, the US government has been engaged in a battle to extradite Dotcom, so that he can face trial in the US on several counts including copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering. Dotcom has fought back every step of the way and in 2016,...
Stream Ripper Verdict Gives Carte Blanche to Internet Pirates, Record Labels Say
YouTube downloaders, often called stream rippers, are seen as the largest piracy threat to the music industry. As such, record labels are doing their best to shut them down. In 2017, YouTube-MP3, the world’s largest ripping site at the time, went offline after being sued, and several others folded in response to increased legal uncertainty. Last summer, a group of major record labels, helped by the RIAA, targeted two of the...
How to create portable documents with CBZ and DjVu
Recently, I discovered that my great-great-grandfather wrote two books near the turn of the 20th century: one about sailing and the other about his career as New York City’s fire chief. The books have a niche audience, but since they are part of my family history, I wanted to preserve a digital copy of each. But, I wondered, what portable document format is best suited for such an endeavor? read...
Sweet Home 3D: An open source tool to help you decide on your dream home
I recently accepted a new job in Virginia. Since my wife was working and watching our house in New York until it sold, it was my responsibility to go out and find a new house for us and our cat. A house that she would not see until we moved into it! read...
Getting started with PiFlash: Booting your Raspberry Pi on Linux
Most people install some form of Linux when they set up a Raspberry Pi computer. Until recently, the installation tools for creating a bootable SD card were only available for Windows and MacOS desktops. If you were running Linux on your desktop, you got a page of instructions on doing it manually from the command line. read...
