[Quote:]

(My translation)

In 1992 Bruno Rosier found a collection of tourist snaps in a flea market. They featured an anonymous man posing in front of monuments and famous views in all parts of the world. The photos spanned the years 1935 to 1954.

Fifty years later, Rosier retraced the steps of the stranger, posing in the same way in front of the same monuments and views, wearing the the same hats and clothes. ….

By Neil McAllister, at http://fatalexception.org/action_item.html

So it’s my birthday today.. time for a relevant quote…

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955), (attributed)

[Quote:]

A federal judge has ordered the Defense Department to turn over dozens of photographs and four movies depicting detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“These images may be ugly and shocking, but they depict how the torture was more than the actions of a few rogue soldiers,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “The American public deserves to know what is being done in our name. Perhaps after these and other photos are forced into the light of day, the government will at long last appoint an outside special counsel to investigate the torture and abuse of detainees.”

The court order came in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights to obtain documents and materials pertaining to the treatment of detainees held by American forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

Attorneys for the government had argued that turning over visual evidence of abuse would violate the United States’ obligations under the Geneva Conventions, but the ACLU said that obscuring the faces and identifiable features of the detainees would erase any potential privacy concerns. The court agreed.

“It is indeed ironic that the government invoked the Geneva Conventions as a basis for withholding these photographs,” said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney at the ACLU. “Had the government genuinely adhered to its obligations under these Conventions, it could have prevented the widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.”

[Quote:]

An atlas of environmental change compiled by the United Nations reveals some of the dramatic transformations that are occurring to our planet.

It compares and contrasts satellite images taken over the past few decades with contemporary ones.

These highlight in vivid detail the striking make-over wrought in some corners of the Earth by deforestation, urbanisation and climate change.

Among the transformations highlighted in the atlas are the huge growth of greenhouses in southern Spain (pictured above), the rapid rise of shrimp farming in Asia and Latin America and the emergence of a giant, shadow puppet-shaped peninsula at the mouth of the Yellow River that has built up through transportation of sediment in the waters.

The effects of retreating glaciers on mountains and in polar regions, deforestation in South America and forest fires across sub-Saharan Africa are also shown in the atlas.

[Quote:]
Judge Marilyn Patel issued a ruling (PDF) Wednesday that settles an important question in the ongoing Napster (yes, Napster) case — whether under the law, simply offering copyrighted material to others (say, by listing it in an index) means you’re distributing it.

The record label lawyers, as Ernie Miller so delicately puts it, “were bloody idiots because they didn’t nail down evidence of direct infringement before launching the Napster lawsuit.” They have therefore been working hard at making the Artists’ Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005 (ART Act) work for them, hoping Judge Patel would adopt a new, broader standard for the right of distribution based on one of its provisions. If Judge Patel found Napster liable for direct infringement on the theory of making-available-as-distributing, the labels could press forward against Napster’s investors on that basis. No such luck.

Rather than requiring proof of the actual dissemination of a copyrighted work or an offer to distribute that work for the purpose of its further distribution or public performance, plaintiffs’ theory is premised on the assumption that any offer to distribute a copyrighted work violates section 106(3). This is not sufficient to satisfy plaintiffs’ burden of proving that Napster or its users directly infringed their copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings, as they must do if they are to hold defendants secondarily liable for that infringement. Accordingly, the court holds that defendants are entitled to summary judgment on this issue.

In other words, copyright holders have to prove that someone actually downloaded the file from you before you can be found liable for distributing. The simple act of offering isn’t enough.

[Quote:]

The bones of the mighty T. rex tell a lot about the great dinosaurs, but one major detail has been missing. Which is the she rex and which the he rex? Researchers think they have found the answer.

A team led by Mary H. Schweitzer of North Carolina State University reports finding a layer of medullary bone inside the leg bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex discovered in Montana.

Medullary bone is a calcium-rich layer that develops in the long bones of birds during the egg-laying process. It provides a ready supply of calcium to form eggshells.

Its presence inside this T. rex’s legs indicates that the dinosaur was a female, Schweitzer said. The finding will enable researchers to determine the sex of at least some dinosaurs.

It also adds weight to the widespread belief that today’s birds descended from dinosaurs.