Saturday News Chum Stew – Independence Weekend Edition

[cahwyguy]

In between watching the news of the horrific plane crash at SFO (luckily, no reports of fatalities yet), here are some less horrific accumulated links that didn’t quite form a larger theme:

• Abandoned Resorts. When I was younger, I found abandoned things fascinating. Houses about to be torn down. The old facilities at Murietta Hot Springs. Older parts at camp. Here’s an interesting rundown of 10 abandoned resorts that have just been left to rot. The pictures are just fascinating.
• Abandoned Readers. This week also saw the death of Google Reader. Here are two interesting articles exploring the possible rationale, and looking at why Google really hates RSS. The first looks at the battle for control of the API; the second talks about how vendors want to lock down how people interact with their products (and never liked free tools that gave everything away). I personally love RSS — it is a way for me to get people reading my blog without having to post links everywhere.
• Automotive Risks. Here’s an interesting proposal from a company in South Caroline to use e-Paper displays as license plates, permitting them to display “STOLEN” or “ON CELL PHONE” or other such stuff. Loads of risks here, along with questions of how to secure the protocols.
• Attacks on Credit Unions. My credit union alerted me to this a few days ago; now an article is in the LA Times. Not content with the profit banks make, Banks are now trying to make Credit Unions (which are non-profit) subject to taxes. Seems that banks don’t like the competition, especially from an entity that drives any surplus back to its members, instead of the executives and shareholders. You can take action by visiting Don’t Tax My Credit Union. Additionally, you can “like” CUNA Advocacy on Facebook, follow @CUNAadvocacy using hashtag #DontTaxMyCU on Twitter, or call 877-642-4223.
• Geographical Domains. According to the LA Times, GoDaddy is starting to market .la domains in Los Angeles. The domain actually belongs to Laos. Yet another domain that will create difficulty for those companies attempting to filter Internet access by country code (I often have trouble getting to paper.li at work).

As a final PS: Flyaway prices in LA look to be rising again.

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