[Quote:]

[Quote:]

No one knows that this sentence is true.

That sentence can’t be false, because that would lead immediately to a contradiction.

But if it’s true, then omniscience is impossible.

Therefore there can be no all-knowing being.

[Quote:]

For more than a century, a few scientists have occasionally daydreamed of transforming much of the Sahara desert green, with a lush inland sea or vast tracts of farmland. Now researchers say they have actually found a way to make such a scheme work with forests across the desert–and to slow climate change in the process.

The idea is the brainchild of Leonard Ornstein, a cell biologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who partnered with climate modelers David Rind and Igor Aleinov of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, all in New York City. They envision desalinating seawater from the neighboring oceans and bringing it inland using aqueducts and pumps. Drip irrigation–plastic tubing to water the trees’ roots–would minimize the amount of water lost to evaporation and seepage into sandy soils, allowing trees to prosper in areas that are parched today.

According to climate simulations to be published next month in the journal Climatic Change, the forests would cool the Sahara by up to 8°C in some areas. “Eucalyptus grandis and a large number of other tropical tree species are heat-tolerant, so long as they have an ample supply of water in the root zone,” Ornstein says. The tree cover would also bring more rain–about 700 to 1200 millimeters per year–and clouds, which help reflect the sun’s rays back into space. The scheme could also work for the arid Australian outback, the team reports.

[Quote:]

Mr Buffett has admitted that he was contacted by Barclays at the height of last September’s financial crisis with a request to provide insurance for the British bank’s bid to buy Lehman.

He confessed to a Fortune conference that he asked for additional details from the bank to be faxed to him, but didn’t hear anything, until 10 months later, when he realised that a Barclays executive, understood to be Bob Diamond, had left him a follow-up voice message on his mobile phone at the time.

Barclays’ attempt to buy Lehman failed after the US Treasury refused to guarantee Lehman’s toxic assets until it could stage a shareholder meeting to approve the deal. It is thought that Barclays asked Mr Buffett to assist in some way to allow it to complete the deal until it could hold a vote.

Mr Buffett shrugged: “Don’t try to get in touch with me by cell phone.”

Okay, show of hands.. who amongst you is looking to Adobe for solutions to deliver engaging experiences and more effectively monetize your content and applications online?

Bueller?

Bueller?

[Quote:]

Wikimedia Italia, the local chapter of Wikimedia Foundation for Italy, has been sued for 20,000,000 € (no mistake, twenty millions euros), together with its former president, Frieda Brioschi.

The lawsuit has been initiated by Antonio and Giampaolo Angelucci (father and son), the alleged reason being some edits in the it.wiki’s Antonio Angelucci article, which were considered an offense to the reputation of both. In a word, defamation.

Okay, there are some weird aspects not mentioned on the wiki page above:

- The wiki article is about Antonio Angelucci, a politician and businessman who was involved in a corruption scandal a few years ago. The article contained strictly neutral informations, taken from newspapers and press agencies, about the arrest of Angelucci’s son and about his trial.

- The procedure was deposited in the Court of Rome without a warning or a takedown notice.
- Many odd things were on the citation papers: numbers modified (sometimes doubled) with a pen over the original printed document, wrong name on the address, confused and misleading paragraphs.
- Angelucci lawyers didn’t even try to contact Wikimedia before filing.
- The procedure is a civil one (i.e. aimed to get a financial settlement) instead of a penal one (i.e. aimed to punish someone with jail): it’s cheaper and less risky for the plaintiff, and considerably longer.

In Italy civil procedures can be a decade long or more, and they are very expensive in terms of lawyers.
Procedures are very complex, and it’s not unheard of causes lost due to trivial procedural errors, like documents who fail to be delivered in time or lawyers who miss one of the many court meetings.
Moreover, the knowledge judges have of modern technologies is quite dismaying, since most of them are in their late years because the career path needed to become a judge is a very long one.
Worst of all, is that even if you win your expenses could be left at your charge; usually not even a compensation for lost time, stress of travel expenses is given to the unjustly accused.

Angelucci is clearly trying to scare Wikimedia and anyone else to have the memory of his deeds deleted.

Italian blogosphere is simply outraged by this situation, but national newspaper have failed to pick it up: they are usually interested in Wikimedia only in august, when there are no real news (a few years ago, we had about 20 journalist at a meeting in Milan, where the meeting was clearly stated as a “trip to museum and beer with firends” kind of event).

And because Angelucci owns two newspapers himself, and is a good friend of another media mogul (yes, I’m talking about Berlusconi) it’s likely newspapers are simply scared into not reporting this.

Perhaps we need to make Angelucci aware of the Streisand effect…