The iPhone and the Samsung phone (sPhone?) are very good technological devices primarily because they have shiny metal on the backside, underneath the plastic case you bought to protect the shiny metal from smudges or scratches. But is the mining of this metal destroying a beautiful Eden-like Indonesian island? Probably! Friends of the Earth did a six-month-long investigation (PDF) of the Appalachian-style tin mining operations on Bangka Island, where a massive industrial operation is "destroying forests, farmland and coral reefs, injuring miners and driving away fish and marine life." All so you can put an "Otterbox" over the shiny metal!

Apple and Samsung "neither confirmed nor denied [...]

My usual Friday attack of Let This Week Be Over Syndrome came early this week (if you're scoring at home, here's exactly when it happened), and I'll try to gut it out and take you through the rest of the day, but man am I finding it hard to care. Still, here are a couple of things you might be interested in.

"I was really scared when I first heard about these balls. It sounds like it could be really dangerous. But I don't think it will last long. They have tried everything to keep us from riding… but in the end we always win." —Twenty-seven-year-old "train surfer" Mulyanto, who rides on the roof of the overcrowded train from Bogor to Jakarta every day for work, on the Indonesian government's installation of large metal balls that hang from chains just above train-level at stations and track crossings. The balls are meant to stop the practice, which led to eleven accidental deaths last year. But, damn, it seems like those balls [...]