Piracy isn’t illegal, it’s art.

Posted on 19/10/2011 by Administrator

Is it art or just plain old theft ? Who’s knows but artist/pirate Manuel Palou’s piece entitled “5 Million Dollars 1 Terabyte (2011)” is certainly controversial.

It purports itself [we assume] to be some sort of allegory of the digital generation’s disregard for the law in order to fulfill their lust for consumable data, or something. Art404 says “ 5 Million Dollars 1 Terabyte” (2011) is a sculpture consisting of a 1 TB Black External Hard Drive containing $5,000,000 worth of illegally downloaded files. A full list of the files with clickable download links can be found here.”

Whether you think this is a blatant excuse to illegally download copyright material or it is a genuine art monolith, symbolic of, ..err.. something symbolic, either way it still looks to us like a crappy Western Digital MyBook which will probably not mount correctly and will end up corrupting the lot. Good luck with that.

Also for that price you’d at least want some movies on there. Sheesh.

Courtesy of Rhizome and ART404

-RP


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Find my iPhone works ! With a little help from the cops.

Posted on 07/10/2011 by Administrator

I’m sure when activating this function on your iPhone you probably envisaged someday your stolen phone being tracked down by FBI agents and marines. In truth the reality is slightly less glamorous but successful none the less.

Two days ago I took a taxi from the airport to home as I quite often do, but this time I managed to leave my iPhone on the back seat. Silly I know, but these things happen. Admittedly it was only a 3GS but hey, it’s still my phone and I want it back! After realising it was gone and several missed calls later I quickly jumped online and went to me.com, found the phone was still giving a signal and was located in a housing estate only about three miles from where I live!

So with a glimmer of hope I went up there (not alone I might add) and proceeded to knock on doors. Rather unsurprisingly nobody knew anything and so we had to give up and go home. The next morning I finally got in touch with the taxi driver and he confirmed that he had dropped off another job in that estate later that evening. He verified the exact address and description of the perp. So with that I had enough to go to the cops with.

Thankfully the police were extremely helpful and acknowledged that the screenshot above and the address from the taxi driver was enough evidence for them to “make some enquiries”. Yesterday evening, in less than 24 hours, the police had retrieved my phone and all peace and unity had been restored in the galaxy, thanks in no small part to the find my iPhone function and the speedy help from the police.

Too bad it’s time to buy a new 4S now. Oh well.

If you have an iPhone but haven’t already got this switched on go here.

-RP


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