Pirates // Current TV

‘Piracy isn’t killing music’ Radiohead’s guitarist says

Last year, Radiohead expressed their growing discomfort with record labels that abuse... more

atomiclegion
added this
2 years ago
|
27 comments

Pirates Are The Music Industry’s Most Valuable Customers

Once again the music industry has come out with disappointing results for physical... more

atomiclegion
added this
2 years ago
|
10 comments

Music Monday: Pirate Cat Radio vs. the FCC

At age 15, Daniel K. Roberts, better known as Monkey Man, built a radio station in his... more

atomiclegion
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

There is now an anti pirate water cannon

A Hampshire company has unveiled a new type of water canon designed to prevent pirates... more

Mcellie
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

Top 5 Reasons Porn-for-Profit Is Dying

Why is the adult film business in dire straits? Sasha Grey and other stars answered... more

atomiclegion
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

Heroes in a Land of Pirates

LAST Monday, Somali pirates seized two more prizes in rapid succession: a British-flagged chemical tanker and a Greek bulk carrier, bringing the current number of captive ships to 12 and the number of hostage mariners to at least 278. Despite the presence in the region of three multinational naval task forces comprising about 30 warships, there were 68 successful pirate hijackings in 2009, compared with 49 one year earlier.

If the New Year’s Day capture of an Indonesian tanker is any indication, 2010 will not herald an end to the attacks. As one Somali pirate told me last year: “Sometimes, we capture ships when [warships] are right around us. We don’t care about them. They’re not going to stop us.” Indeed, the pirates’ range has expanded to more than 1,000 miles off the Somali coast — as far as the Seychelles — and the futility of an exclusively naval strategy is increasingly apparent.

The situation is not without hope. There might be another way to make greater strides against pirates. However, it would involve allying ourselves with a place that doesn’t exist: the autonomous region of Puntland, Somalia.

To the ancient Egyptians, the land of Punt was a source of munificent treasures and bountiful wealth. Modern Puntland, a self-governing region in northeastern Somalia, may or may not be the successor to the Punt of legend. As I discovered when I first visited, last year, it contained none of the gold and ebony that dazzled the Egyptians, save perhaps for the color of the sand and the skin of the nomadic goat and camel herders who have inhabited it for centuries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/opinion/04bahadur.html?pagewanted=all

More on Piracy at Sea

There have been seagoing pirates throughout history -- from plundering Vikings to 17th-century raiders who pillaged Spanish galleons. In recent years, a spate of attacks off the Horn of Africa has shown that piracy can still be highly profitable as well as dangerous.

In Somalia, a country of grinding poverty and internal chaos, the pirate economy is booming. The piracy is an extension of the corrupt, violent free-for-all that has raged on land since the central government imploded in 1991. It has turned the waters into the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world.

Somali pirates carried out a record number of attacks and hijackings in 2009, despite the deployment of international warships to thwart them and a United Nations Security Council resolution to bring the fight against them to shore.

The pirates have spread themselves across thousands of square miles of water, from the Gulf of Aden, at the narrow doorway to the Red Sea, to the Kenyan border along the Indian Ocean. Another center of piracy, southeast Asia has seen a decrease in attacks in recent years.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/piracy_at_sea/index.htmlLAST Monday, Somali pirates seized two more prizes in rapid succession: a... more

remanns
added this
2 years ago
|
1 comment

Better Airport Scanners Delayed By Privacy Fears

High-tech security scanners that might have prevented the Christmas Day attempt to... more

atomiclegion
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

Somali pirates seize British tanker

A UK-flagged chemical tanker has been hijacked by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden,... more

dlamb
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

A Pirate Christmas in Tokyo

Christmas has rolled around once more and Tokyo Decadance that eclectic melting pot of... more

SamuraiDave
added this
2 years ago
|
1 comment

LittleBigPlanet Getting Wet and Piratey Soon

Now, Media Molecule, the developers of LittleBigPlanet, has officially detailed and... more

doctorstrange
added this
2 years ago
|
0 comments

James Cameron's 3D Vision: Making more in to 3-D, Eeven older Onees

Imagine watching Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia or Lord of the Rings in 3D. The day that fantasy actually makes its way to a theater near you may not be too far off. If the upcoming 3D science fiction epic Avatar becomes the massive blockbuster that many have predicted, it could be a game-changer for the entire movie business by opening a floodgate of new 3D movies.

Industry analysts say the new wave of films to take advantage of the technology won't be limited to action, animated or science fiction, either. Avatar director James Cameron promised fans last summer on a Comic-Con panel that he'd convert his biggest hit into 3D.

"We're going to dimensionalize Titanic," he proclaimed, to cheers. "Turn it into high-quality 3D."

Cameron has already started to retrofit the 1997 movie, and he says it could hit theaters within two years.

A small handful of companies have developed technology that converts existing live-action movies into 3D, using highly specialized software to double the image and add depth. (It's vastly improved from the 3D of the 1950s or even the 1980s — which brought us the better-off-forgotten Jaws 3-D.)

Proponents describe this 3D technology as an immersive new way to tell and experience stories. But some critics, like film scholar Kristin Thompson, say it's still a gimmick. Once the novelty wears off, she wonders if millions of people will stand in line for tickets to 3D versions of movies they've already seen repeatedly.

Thompson points out that Titanic has made almost $2 billion worldwide since its release. "It became so successful because people went back to see it over and over again," she observed. "And a lot of those people were girls and women who found it very attractive in terms of the romance, but who probably wouldn't find it all that much more attractive if it was in 3D."

Ticket prices for films in 3D are higher than those for films projected normally, and so far, they're an attraction pirates can't replicate on a bootleg DVD; these are two reasons why studios are embracing 3D features. But expansion faces a big challenge: There aren't enough screens in cinemas. Only about 1 in 10 U.S. movie theaters can play films in 3D.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121298283Imagine watching Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia or Lord of the Rings in 3D. The day... more