Some interesting stuff this week tnx to Tech Dirt

On weekends I catch up with large-volume newsfeeds, like Techdirt. So here are a few links that interested me.

Authorities arrest four, seize 60,000 pirated Nintendo game consoles in NY, NJ: More bad "journalism," as an AP reporter in this article can't figure out if games are being pirated, or game consoles. So he/she/it just switches back and forth, calling them both. (And look at the game names. Donkey Kong? For goodness sake! Somebody get me a pirated copy of Joust).

Local cable companies, who once sat fat & sassy with their monopolies, are now scrambling desperately to do anything to maintain themselves, like pushing for a tax on satellite TV service just because it's satellite TV service, as this report from BroadbandReports.com points out. I don't have the option of cable where I live, and began using satellite TV 4 or 5 years ago. However, I have seen the anti-satellite TV commercials coming from Time-Warner Cable (which services--yeah, that's a good word--San Antonio), and they insult my intelligence. Some idiot is crying because he doesn't know how to read a compass. Of course, no one requires you to self-install these days, so I guess their commercial is kind of obsolete. I wouldn't use them if I could. Passage of taxes like this can affect everyone who uses satellite TV, even those like me who don't have a cable option. So I say: up yours, cable fascists. (Of course, they have not yet tried this in Texas, but it's only a matter of time).

Intel pulls a bonehead stunt, and offers a $10,000 reward for a copy of the April 19, 1965 edition of Electronics Magazine, apparently forgetting about an old-fashioned thing called a library archive. Now some librarians are expectedly steamed because their magazines are disappearing.