The news out of the San Diego Comic Con wasn’t particularly interesting to me this year. That and a generally packed weekend meant no extra posts.
However, here is a quick run down of the top geek stories. Some really juicy non-Comic Con related stuff happened.
AT&T should prepare for an ass-whoopin from Anonymous
AT&T probably just created a really big problem for themselves in Southern California.
Reports are coming in that portions of the website 4chan.org are being blocked by AT&T in SoCal.
I have no idea if this is true, but if it is, AT&T should brace itself for serious trouble, from a non-organization called Anonymous.
I don’t have the time to explain what 4chan.org or Anonymous are this evening, so I am going to direct you to their respective Wikipedia pages.
I will say this, 4chan and Anonymous are incredibly interesting. They are neither good nor evil, they just exist. They have created and represent some of the best and worst parts of the Internet, and openly celebrate both. More importantly, they can be very cruel (sometimes for very good reason, and sometimes for no reason at all) and are not to be trifled with.
Update: This story has been confirmed, and you can find out more about it here.
The Associated Press announces an innovative plan to destroy itself
The AP doesn’t want anyone to use any part of any of their stories unless they pay for it. No headlines, no quotes, nothing.
I guess their goal is to stop news aggrigators from linking to their web site, or keep bloggers from doing them same.
This probably won’t work very well, they don’t stand to gain much from this in terms of revenue or traffic, it will damage their placement on search engines because they will receive fewer links, they are going to get sued over “fair use,” and they will alienate the Internet (their only future customers).
This is a special kind of stupid.
That being said, I am getting the message loud and clear. From this point forward I will not link to AP material. If they don’t want my traffic, they won’t get it. I’m also going to put fourth a serious effort to avoid reading their content (since I can’t link to it anyway).
Your welcome AP.
This issue could have long lasting implications for the future health of the Internet. For a better understanding of the situation, I recommend reading this post from Scott Rosenberg’s wordyard.
News from Comic Con
The San Diego Comic Con has been morphing into a big pop culture media convention over the past decade. It seems that they are raising the prices for table space every year, and it’s causing more mom & pop comic shops to back out of the Con. The economy seems to have really hit Convention goers pretty hard and as a consequence, they didn’t spend as much money as usual. It sounds like next years Comic Con might look very different.
Valerie D’Orazio (Occasional Superheroine) wrote a good piece on the changing nature of Comic Con and the comic industry.
The Geek Whisperer 