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Wednesday, May 3, 2006

New filmmaker Solomon Rothman has released a trailer for his upcoming full length open source film called ‘Boy Who Never Slept.’ Both the movie and the trailer are offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. The movie is set to be released at the end of May.

The film centers on the life of an insomniac writer who meets a teenage girl online, and a friendship that grows into an unlikely love story wrapped in harsh reality. The movie deals with various issues, including the romanticization of love, age-related issues in relationships, like statuatory rape (he’s 23, and she’s 16), and the idea of love in the online realm.

Rothman, a writer, amateur filmmaker and web designer, lives in the Los Angeles Area. He wrote, directed and produced the movie with Aurora Mae, his girlfriend and partner. Producing the movie for $200 while they were in college, they used friends as actors and later sold the camera on eBay to recoup the expense.

Rothman has spoken about the power of the internet as a distribution source for movies and has said “I believe it’s possible that this movie I shot with no budget and released online for free could potentially reach as many viewers as a major theatrical release.”

Rothman and Mae started out with the idea of creating a full-length movie that could be shared totally for free online. The film includes a custom soundtrack and script, both of which will be released open source as well.

The trailer is available on the official movie website[1] and can also be found on Google video, YouTube.com, Ifilm.com, AddictedClips.com, and the Internet Movie Archives.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

A hacker who has claimed to be loosely associated with internet group Anonymous managed to hack into the email account of Alaskan Governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the early morning hours of Wednesday, September 16.

Partial contents of her email account – including two family photos, email messages and contact lists – were subsequently hosted online at Wikileaks.org, a website that anonymously hosts leaked government and corporate documents. Anonymous, who were responsible for attacks on Scientology in the past, have claimed credit for the intrusion. The email account has been used by Palin for conducting government business and communication, circumventing transparency laws.

The hacker gained access to Palin’s account by answering Yahoo!’s security questions, finding the answers on websites like Wikipedia.org. The hacker was apparently careless and frightened, and posted the new password on 4chan.org as well as a few hasty screenshots. In the screenshots were proxy data, which Ctunnel.com owner Gabriel Ramuglia plans to use to help with FBI investigations.

“White hat” hackers, however, have discovered that the hacker’s online identity was linked to the email address of David Kernell, the son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell. When confronted, Kernell made no confirmation of that. While 4chan has deleted all images of the email account, the screenshots have quickly spread to blogs and news websites online.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Ex-Washington, D.C. third grade teacher Eric Justin Toth, who worked at the National Cathedral’s Beauvoir school, was officially added to the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List yesterday, replacing Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US Navy Seals last May. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began investigating Toth in 2008 when a school camera allegedly used by Toth contained child pornography.

The FBI also believes Toth was responsible for installing a camera in the student’s bathroom near Toth’s classroom.

When Toth became aware of the investigation he became a fugitive. Toth, who also goes by the name David Bussone, has warrants for his arrest in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

The FBI is currently offering a reward for up to $100,000 leading to Toth’s arrest.

Toth is the 495th person to be placed on the Ten Most Wanted List.

Sunday, July 9, 2006

India‘s most sophisticated Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) to date, the Agni III was test-fired off the Orissa coast earlier today. The missile took off from a fixed platform at the Integrated Test Range at Wheeler Island at 11:05 IST (05:35 GMT) in the presence of Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his scientific advisor M. Natarajan.

The missile took off vertically into space before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down near Nicobar Island in the Bay of Bengal. Three sophisticated radars, six electro-optical tracking systems and three telemetric data stations on the mainland at Dhamra, Chandipur and the Andamans, together with a ship anchored near the splash-down point monitored the missile’s trajectory. According to eyewitnesses, the missile blasted off into the sky leaving behind a trail of thick yellow smoke and disappeared out of sight into the clouds within seconds.

The Agni-III, which has a range of 3,500 km and can carry up to 1000 kg of payload, has been described as the most powerful missile developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation. The missile, which is 16 metres long and has a diametre of 1.8 metres, has solid fuel boosters and is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. The Agni-I and Agni-II, which were the earlier versions of the Agni series developed under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), have already been inducted into the Indian Army. Boosters for the earlier two missiles had been provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation, however, the Agni-III uses an entirely new booster vehicle.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2016 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: the Free & Equal Foundation holds a presidential debate with three little-known candidates; three additional candidates give their final pleas to voters; and past Wikinews interviewees provide their electoral predictions ahead of the November 8 election.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Thailand’s People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) announced a planned rally this coming Monday at the national stadium and march to police headquarters in protest at action taken against demonstrators last Tuesday. Tuesday’s protest, where attempts were made to block MPs access to and from parliament, turned ugly when police employed tear gas and other measures to disperse the PAD crowd. Two protesters died, over four hundred were injured, and reports indicate that as many as ten may be missing. The ongoing protests and demonstrations are aimed at toppling the governing People’s Power Party (PPP) who are accused of being a proxy for deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s outlawed Thai Rak Thai party.

Friday saw the remaining seven PAD protest leaders surrender to police and be issued on bail. Leaders Chamlong Srimuang and Chaiwat Sinuwong were also bailed, having been arrested and detained earlier. This follows the charges of treason being thrown out by the country’s appeals court; lesser charges, including inciting unrest, still stand.

The activist political group, founded by media firebrand Sondhi Limthongkul has occupied Government house for some time now, their demands are for a revision of the Thai political landscape which would see professionals and those in the more prosperous parts of the country a bigger say in the government. Outstanding charges of corruption against Thaksin Shinawatra who the military removed from power in September 2007 are the result of Sondhi and the PAD’s long-standing battle against what they view as vote-buying populist policies. Questionable land deals and allegations of neoptism saw an increasing number of people becoming involved in protests prior to the 2007 coup.

The ongoing crisis has impacted the country both domestically and internationally. The deputy prime minister, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh resigned on Friday for his part in ordering the police into action against protesters blockading parliament. In an interview with the Bangkok Post, the former general implied the solution – once again – lies with the army, and suggested a second coup may be the only solution to the crisis. Army chief, Anupong Paochinda, faced scorn from the PAD following his dismissal of the call for a second coup; this despite his issuing harsh criticism of the current administration.

On the international front, Thailand’s troubles saw the Prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat, cancel a number of foreign visits. The beleaguered PM had planned to visit five ASEAN partner countries in a tour that would have started next week. Additional trips to Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar (formerly Burma) were cancelled. According to a member of the PPP this is due to the current unrest.

Adding to the woes of the ruling PPP, the Attorney General’s office has asked for a ruling from the country’s Constitutional Court outlawing the People’s Power Party. Office spokesman, Thanapit Mulpruek, outlined the content of the petition specifying that the key 37 leaders of the PPP should have their voting rights revoked for five years in light of the allegations of election fraud, or knowingly allowing such to continue. The party’s former deputy leader was disqualified during the December 2007 general election, being accused of graft. The party’s members of parliament are scheduled to meet Monday to discuss this issue and the ongoing political crisis.