This credit card sized solar power bank comes with fast-charging and lets you plug in any device Yanko Design
“Don’t Plug Your Phone into a Charger You Don’t Own” – read more
We were working on some new Techdirt gear designs for our Techdirt Gear shop at Threadless (stay tuned!) when the NY Times dropped its bombshell of a story regarding President Donald Trump’s tax returns. As you likely know, despite every Presidential candidate in my lifetime releasing their tax returns, Trump has refused to do so (also, despite promises that he would). For years, reporters have sought out those taxes, and somehow the reporters at the Times got them. There were many interesting things highlighted in those tax returns, but a key point that has resonated widely: in the year Trump won the Presidency he only paid $ 750 in federal taxes (the same as he paid in many other years as well, including his first year as President in 2017).
Lots of people have been pointing out that this is crazy for all sorts of reasons, and plenty of people, including Joe Biden have jumped in with “I paid more in taxes than Donald Trump” gear. But, here at Techdirt, we believe in… going bigger. So we’re selling a “I Paid More For This T-Shirt Than Trump Paid In Taxes” t-shirt… for $ 751 (plus shipping).
This is a real shirt and you can really buy it. Whether or not it’s worth paying $ 751 for such a t-shirt is a decision that only you can make, though we’d be happy with that kind of support.
Of course, if that’s a bit too pricey for you, we do still have a lot of other more affordable gear you can pick up too, like our copyright takedown gear:
Or our 1st Emojiment gear that explains the 1st Amendment in emoji.
And many other designs and products (not just t-shirts, we’ve got face masks, mugs and notebooks among many other items as well). So shop around, and feel free to spend more supporting us than the President has spent supporting the United States of America.
Five Years Ago
This week in 2015, a major scandal began when Volkswagen was accused of using software to cheat emissions tests. The White House was backing away from attacks on encryption, and it turned out that the FBI, CIA and much of the military were not doing basic email encryption — but in India things were going in the opposite direction. The monkey selfie saga began a new chapter with PETA filing a lawsuit on behalf of the monkey, and then an even bigger copyright bombshell hit when a judge ruled that Warner Chappell doesn’t hold the copyright on happy birthday. Plus the world got a new famous villain with a sudden hike in drug prices introducing everyone to a man named Martin Shkreli.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2010, Intel was threatening to break out the DMCA anti-circumvention lawsuits against anyone using the recently-leaked HDCP master key, state AGs were turning their attention to Backpage (which was gearing up to fight back), and movie studios were freaking out about fan pages. The MPAA was apparently fishing for censorship tools in ACTA by talking about Wikileaks, while the Senate was offering them a gift with a new bill that would enable global censorship of “pirate sites” (with a special loophole allowing the DOJ to avoid due process. And we saw a variety of interesting developments in various lawsuits: one judge was entertaining the notion of implied licenses in a Righthaven lawsuit while another was shutting down US Copyright Group subpoenas, a UK judge was similarly not impressed by copyright pre-settlement campaigns, and a judge in Spain smartly ruled that Google is not liable for user uploads.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2005, there was a mess of internet jurisdiction cases in Canada with one ruling being overturned on appeal while another court muddied the waters with a ruling based on the overturned ruling. Hollywood was pouring money into an ill-fated attempt to build better DRM technology, which could be described as them calling their own bluff. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in their case, Grokster was scrambling to sell to a “legit” company, as were several other file-sharing software providers. And one judge in a RIAA lawsuit thankfully recognized that parents aren’t liable for their kids downloading music.
This password-stealing malware is affecting hundreds of Android apps TechRadar
“android security news” – read more