Fractal Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot Dead at 85 CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Benoit Mandelbrot, a pioneer in fractal mathematics and the person who coined the term, has died in Cambridge, Mass., at the age of 85. Aliette Mandelbrot told The New York Times her husband suffered from pancreatic cancer and died Thursday in Cambridge.

Musopen Is Freeing Classical Music From the Chains of Copyright David Bollier, On the Commons Ludwig von Beethoven died 183 years ago. So why is his music still locked behind copyrights and not available for free to everyone? Because even if the music itself is in the public domain, the recordings of his music, or perhaps the sheet music (with special arrangements or notation) can be copyrighted by the orchestras that perform the music or the composers who notate it.

News Outlets Follow NPR's Lead: No Staffers at Stewart and Colbert Rallies Nate Freeman, NY Observer After a memo banning staffers from attending rallies — specifically the two high-profile ones to be orchestrated by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert later this month — made its way around the internet and collected backlash in its swath, NPR is trying to get other news outlets to join its side of the fight.

Socialisme ou Barbarie Theorist Claude Lefort Dies at Age 86 Tendance Coatesy The French political theorist and philosopher Claude Lefort died on Sunday the 3rd of October at 86 years old. For the left Lefort’s most significant political and intellectual activity was some time ago, in the 1950s hey-days of the libertarian socialist (and critical Marxist) French group, Socialisme ou Barbarie.

Ecuador Declares State of Emergency Amid 'Coup Attempt' BBC A state of emergency has been declared in Ecuador after President Rafael Correa accused the opposition and security forces of a coup attempt. Mr Correa was taken to hospital after being hit by tear gas at a protest. Later reports spoke of fresh violence outside as he was being treated. Troops also took over the main airport, forcing it to close. Unrest has been reported across the country.

Neoliberalism is destroying Europe Christian Marazzi The Guardian The European sovereign debt crisis, which was caused by member states' public debt but increased because of the actions taken to rescue the banks after the 2008 crisis, demonstrates at least three things. First, that currency does not exist without a state. Second, that capitalism cannot be managed by the market alone. And third, that the austerity measures will not bring Europe out of the crisis but will in fact continue to make it worse – until the euro crashes. However, the most important point to emerge from the crisis is that Europe's political reinvention will depend exclusively on the social struggle against neoliberal politics. Neoliberalism, the absurd idea of economic government based solely on the market and its ability to self-regulate, is at the root of the great illusion of a leaderless Europe supposedly unified by a euro that has controlled the internal economic and social differences according to the logic of the financial markets. And yet, neoliberalism is still the only language used by European politicians to confront the crisis and to face the social conflicts that will break out over the next few months. There exists no European government; only management of austerity measures and of repression.

Pirate Bay Down, Police Raids Across Europe thing.co.uk Police in up to 14 countries carried out raids against suspected file-sharing servers this morning. According to file-sharing news site TorrentFreak, the bulk of police action seems to have taken place in Sweden. Swedish Internet service provider ISP, which hosts both The Pirate Bay and whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks, earlier denied rumours of a police raid, saying that officers had visited them to ask questions over two

Historian Tony Judt Dies, Aged 62 Guardian Tony Judt, the British writer, historian and professor who was recently described as having the "liveliest mind in New York", has died after a two-year struggle with motor neurone disease. Considered by many to be a giant in the intellectual world, Judt chronicled his illness in unsparing detail in public lectures and essays – giving an extraordinary account that won him almost as much respect as his voluminous historical and political work, for which he was feted on both sides of the Atlantic.

Costa Rican Supreme Court Temporarily Halts Entry of US Military Jamie Way, Narco News Bulletin The Costa Rican Supreme Court last week agreed to take a case challenging the constitutionality of a US-Costa Rican agreement that would allow for a massive US military presence. The agreement cannot go into effect until the Supreme Court rules, thus postponing the arrival of US forces.

Apple Loses Big in DRM Ruling: Jailbreaks Are "Fair Use" Nate Anderson, arstechnica.com Every three years, the Library of Congress has the thankless task of listening to people complain about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA forbade most attempts to bypass the digital locks on things like DVDs, music, and computer software, but it also gave the Library the ability to wave its magical copyright wand and make certain DRM cracks legal for three years at a time. This time, the Library went (comparatively) nuts, allowing widespread bypassing of the CSS encryption on DVDs, declaring iPhone jailbreaking to be "fair use," and letting consumers crack their legally purchased e-books in order to have them read aloud by computers.