law

How Facebook and Twitter mess with DUI checkpoints

The police are sometimes accused of linear thinking, especially when it comes to DUI checkpoints.

They set them up on Friday and Saturday nights. They redouble their efforts on New Year's Eve.

Perhaps the finest example would was one police force in the wine country of Northern California that decided to put a DUI checkpoint at the bottom of a winery's driveway. Yes, on barrel-tasting day.

The police now have a stronger enemy in the people -- the people who are using social media to warn others that this particular Friday or Saturday night has been selected for … Read more

Soft-porn TV star refuses to wear electronic tag, says career-threatening

I have never presented a pornographic show on television, but I imagine it's quite stressful.

The normal scrutiny afforded TV personalities is surely doubled when your show has carnality at its core.

It is, then, understandable why a 19-year-old adult TV presenter, Sophie Dalzell, was mortified on being told by a judge that she must wear an electronic tag on her ankle.… Read more

Jodi Arias dictating Twitter feed from jail

When a murder trial becomes a televisual happening, somehow the public aspects become almost as significant as the legal ones.

We're always told the jurors don't know what's happening in the media, but we wonder that they may have known more than they let on before being selected.

Then there are the defendants and the prosecutors. Each tries to gain some sort of sway in the public eye -- perhaps on a just-in-case basis.

There now, though, seems to be an usual twist in the trial that is currently capturing popular eyes -- that of Jodi Arias.… Read more

In 'Futurama,' robots follow 'Bender's Law,' not Asimov's

STANFORD, Calif.--Issac Asimov's famous laws of robotics say machines may never harm humans. In Matt Groening's "Futurama" universe that takes place a millennium later, however, robots have become a bit less literal-minded.

"The three laws of robotics are actually built into many of the robots," said Patric Verrone, co-executive producer of "Futurama." "Some of them just choose to ignore them."

The best known example of "Futurama's" robot taxonomy is Bender, a foul-mouthed, alcoholic, cigar-smoking kleptomaniac who dreams about killing all the humans. But the universe of &… Read more

Cops allegedly get violent at sight of Samsung Galaxy

Cell phones have that certain power to record events that are occurring in the public sphere.

Sometimes, though, those who wield power aren't so keen to be filmed when they are exercising their might.

Here, for example, is one police officer who seems to believe that the Samsung Galaxy is a weapon.

I hadn't been aware that a slight increase in gadget-size could send it into the same category as, say, a machete.

However, in this footage a member of the San Diego Police Department seems to take great objection to being filmed on a Galaxy while writing … Read more

Man allegedly double-texts, knee-steers -- with kid in back

I am bracing myself for a knee-jerk reaction here.

For this is the story of a man who is said to have taken multi-tasking to an entirely exalted level.

The scene, as painted by the Mobile County Sheriff's Office in Alabama, is that 19-year-old Dandre Moore drove a car while texting.

Actually, the police say he steered the car while texting with both hands.

So how did he steer the car? Well, police say that he used his knees and told them he'd been doing so since he was 15.

As the Alabama Press Register directs the story from earlier this week, … Read more

The 404 1,237: Where Robert Greene 'Masters' The 404 (podcast)

- Robert's Web site, PowerSeductionandWar.

- A Reddit AMA with Robert Greene.

- Follow Robert Greene on Twitter.

Episode 1,237

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No Google Glassing-and-driving ban likely this year

Those who were planning road trips in West Virginia were worried.

Especially those who were included in Google's list of eminent and lucky people who would be the explorers of Google's wonderful, breakthrough (and possibly insane) eyeglasses known as Google Glass.

For a Republican legislator had proposed a bill -- after reading just one Technically Incorrect post -- that would ban anyone in the state from wearing Google's glasses and driving.

Gary. G. Howell explained very cogently that he was not against the invention, but that he feared it would be just as distracting as texting. And … Read more

Facebook boy-with-gun pic: Governor wants investigation

You thought it was all done bar the noisy debating. And even that was abating.

But not just yet.

After Shawn Moore posted a Facebook picture of his 11-year-old son, Josh, with a fetching .22 rifle, child-protection experts and police arrived.

Moore, of Carneys Point, N.J., was outraged. So was his lawyer. The police wanted to enter his house and examine the safe where he kept his guns. They wanted to know that his son would be safe.

The police, though, had no warrant.

Subsequently, the authorities explained that there was a heightened sensitivity, after the Newtown massacre.

New … Read more

Woman breaks into house to browse Facebook, police say

It's possibly one of the less pleasant experiences in life to come home after a night with your boyfriend to discover someone is using your laptop.

Yes, sitting right there in your living room, browsing her Facebook page as if this was, in fact, her house.

This, sadly, is what apparently happened to a 33-year-old resident of Athens, Ga.

As the Athens Banner-Herald has it, the homeowner got back to her house Sunday lunchtime to find an unknown (and currently unnamed) blond woman allegedly browsing Facebook.… Read more