Christmas cats! The Hobbit! SOPA!, and Hair! [I read stuff]

Wherein I read things, laugh, and pass them on to you…

Cats are the same, no matter how big they get!

Watch the new Hobbit trailer at Apple Trailers! Or here:

Martin Freeman is The Hobbit in a New Official Still:

Warner Bros. Pictures has released today, through the film’s Facebook page, a brand-new still from their upcoming The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Check it out below!
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Coming to 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on December 14, 2012, “The Hobbit” films follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever… Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities… A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

The second film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, hits theaters on December 13, 2013.

[comingsoon.net 19 dec 2011]

Coders Develop Ways To Defeat SOPA Censorship:

Hugh Pickens writes “The Atlantic reports that one developer who doesn’t have much faith in Congress making the right decision on anti-piracy legislation has already built a workaround for the impending censorship measures being considered, and called it DeSOPA. Since SOPA would block specific domain names (e.g. www.thepiratebay.com) of allegedly infringing sites, T Rizk’s Firefox add-on allows you to revert to the bare internet protocol (IP) address (e.g. 194.71.107.15) which takes you to the same place. ‘It could be that a few members of Congress are just not tech savvy and don’t understand that it is technically not going to work, at all,’ says T Rizk. ‘So here’s some proof that I hope will help them err on the side of reason and vote SOPA down.’ Another group called ‘MAFIAAFire’ decided to respond when Homeland Security’s ICE unit started seizing domain names, by coding a browser add-on to redirect the affected websites to their new domains. More than 200,000 people have already installed the add-on. ICE wasn’t happy, and asked Mozilla to pull the add-on from their site. Mozilla denied the request, arguing that this type of censorship may threaten the open Internet.”

[slashdot.org Soulskill 21 dec 2011]

I certainly hope so!
Is Pubic Hair Coming Back Into Fashion? [NSFW]:

New pictures of Dutch model Saskia De Brauw in vintage Versace jewelry, stilettos, and nothing else, shot for the magazine Industrie are notable for one thing: they actually show her pubic hair. While toplessness is practically a staple of fashion photography, a frank depiction of pubic hair — or even just the acknowledgement of pubic hair’s existence — had become a sort of oughts-age taboo.

[jezebel.com Jenna Sauers 20 dec 2011]