European Commission president calls president-elect Donald Trump ignorant of the EU and its workings.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is suing California over a law forcing the website to remove the ages of actors on request, saying it is unconstitutional. California passed a law in September ruling that "a commercial online entertainment employment service provider" would be required to remove details of the age of any of its subscribers within five days, on the request of the subscriber. The law was intended to fight age discrimination in the film industry and had been campaigned for by actors' groups. The president of the union Sag-Aftra wrote in August that actors "face blatant age discrimination every day as websites routinely used for casting talent force birth dates and ages on casting decision-makers without their even realizing it." However, IMDb's suit (pdf) claims that the law "does not advance, much less achieve" the goal of reducing age discrimination, and that it violates both the first amendments and commerce clause of the U.S. constitution. IMDb also claims it separately violates federal law "because it imposes liability on IMDb based on factual content that is lawfully posted by its users." The website criticizes the state of California for passing the law, saying it has "chosen to chill free speech and undermine public access to factual information." IMDb says it is being unfairly targeted and that the law does not deal with the main cause of age discrimination. The case claims the law is both too broad -- as it includes all film professionals, rather than just those who could expect to be the target of age discrimination such as actors -- and too narrow, as it fails to impose the same restrictions on the "myriad other sources of the same information," such as Wikipedia, Google or specialist websites that list the birthdays of famous people. IMDb also says that subscribers to its paid professional service, IMDb Pro, have been able to edit or remove biographical details about themselves on the site since 2010.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I think the goal has to be to make sure Trump doesn’t finish his first term. Ideally he is revealed as who he is — a cruel and deeply corrupt man, unfit to be called an American, much less President — and finds that even Republicans in Congress won’t support him anymore, and he resigns in disgrace.

There are theories that Republicans would impeach him — we take that there would be a reason as a given, given his personal corruption — since that would give them President Pence, who’s an electrocuting sicko but is, in their eyes, a normal Republican likely to go along with their policy.

I don’t know. And I know I wouldn’t like President Pence. But still, it would be a defeat for Trump and for Trumpism, and that’s important.

* * *

It’s apparent that protests get under Trump’s skin. That’s a good thing to know.

Getting under his skin is a way to goad him into revealing himself. I assume that there will be large protests in many American cities on Inauguration Day.

* * *

You should read Autocracy: Rules for Survival.

* * *

As we’re making our to-do lists and figuring out what to focus on, let’s remember that freedom of speech and of the press is the core freedom of our democracy.

These freedoms can be degraded without any new laws being made — but Trump has already said he’d like to “open up” libel laws. His hatred of the press isn’t rhetoric for his base: it’s real.

Preserving free speech and a free press has to be at the top of our list.

* * *

This is not normal. This is not just another Republican.

I was born in 1968, which means I’ve lived through Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. Trump doesn’t belong on that list — he’s a would-be dictator who will, with the support of an amoral and cowardly Congress, have the chance to act like one.

I think the goal has to be to make sure Trump doesn’t finish his first term. Ideally he is revealed as who he is — a cruel and deeply corrupt man, unfit to be called an American, much less President — and finds that even Republicans in Congress won’t support him anymore, and he resigns in disgrace.

There are theories that Republicans would impeach him — we take that there would be a reason as a given, given his personal corruption — since that would give them President Pence, who’s an electrocuting sicko but is, in their eyes, a normal Republican likely to go along with their policy.

I don’t know. And I know I wouldn’t like President Pence. But still, it would be a defeat for Trump and for Trumpism, and that’s important.

* * *

It’s apparent that protests get under Trump’s skin. That’s a good thing to know.

Getting under his skin is a way to goad him into revealing himself. I assume that there will be large protests in many American cities on Inauguration Day.

* * *

You should read Autocracy: Rules for Survival.

* * *

As we’re making our to-do lists and figuring out what to focus on, let’s remember that freedom of speech and of the press is the core freedom of our democracy.

These freedoms can be degraded without any new laws being made — but Trump has already said he’d like to “open up” libel laws. His hatred of the press isn’t rhetoric for his base: it’s real.

Preserving free speech and a free press has to be at the top of our list.

* * *

This is not normal. This is not just another Republican.

I was born in 1968, which means I’ve lived through Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. Trump doesn’t belong on that list — he’s a would-be dictator who will, with the support of an amoral and cowardly Congress, have the chance to act like one.

BlackBerry has officially stopped making its own phones, but the company has one last treat for die-hard fans: a new phone sporting its trademark physical keyboard. According to Bloomberg: Chief Executive Officer John Chen had hinted at the phone in September, but hadn't confirmed it until Thursday, when he spoke to Emily Chang in an interview on Bloomberg TV. "We have one keyboard phone I promised people," Chen said. "It's coming." Under Chen, BlackBerry has gradually shifted from smartphones to software and said in September it would completely stop producing, stocking and distributing its own phones. Instead, it will license the BlackBerry brand to outside companies to put on phones they build themselves. The physical keyboard is BlackBerry's best-known smartphone feature, with many former users still lamenting its absence as they clumsily tap out e-mails on their iPhones and sign off with words like "pardon the typos."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BlackBerry has officially stopped making its own phones, but the company has one last treat for die-hard fans: a new phone sporting its trademark physical keyboard. According to Bloomberg: Chief Executive Officer John Chen had hinted at the phone in September, but hadn't confirmed it until Thursday, when he spoke to Emily Chang in an interview on Bloomberg TV. "We have one keyboard phone I promised people," Chen said. "It's coming." Under Chen, BlackBerry has gradually shifted from smartphones to software and said in September it would completely stop producing, stocking and distributing its own phones. Instead, it will license the BlackBerry brand to outside companies to put on phones they build themselves. The physical keyboard is BlackBerry's best-known smartphone feature, with many former users still lamenting its absence as they clumsily tap out e-mails on their iPhones and sign off with words like "pardon the typos."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

American Airlines said Friday Sabre had faced a brief technical issue that impacted multiple carriers. The issue has, however, been resolved. From a report on NBC Chicago: A technical issue at with a computer IT firm briefly caused technical problems for airlines in the United States early Friday afternoon, according to American Airlines. It was one of several air carriers affected by the outage at Sabre, which tweeted about 12:45 p.m. ET that it was working on recovering from unspecified issues customers were facing. American didn't provide more details about what systems and airlines were affected. Reports on Twitter indicated outages at American, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue; all three responded to several tweets about saying computers, kiosks or the website not working.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

American Airlines said Friday Sabre had faced a brief technical issue that impacted multiple carriers. The issue has, however, been resolved. From a report on NBC Chicago: A technical issue at with a computer IT firm briefly caused technical problems for airlines in the United States early Friday afternoon, according to American Airlines. It was one of several air carriers affected by the outage at Sabre, which tweeted about 12:45 p.m. ET that it was working on recovering from unspecified issues customers were facing. American didn't provide more details about what systems and airlines were affected. Reports on Twitter indicated outages at American, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue; all three responded to several tweets about saying computers, kiosks or the website not working.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Maps Geocoding API

infrastructure functions to build a monitoring plugin

After running out of US dollar reserves, some Zimbabwean banks have limited cash withdrawals to 50 dollars a day.