How do you measure time? For me the most obvious measurement of one month is that it is the length of time between two salaries and it means that its time to pay the bills (again). For others it’s different…One month in Lebanon (attacks between July 12 â?? August 10)
Click here for a larger map
For daily updates: lebanonupdates.blogspot.com
Looking for books distributed under a CC license? Then here is a wiki for you. Actually these kinds of pages are really good unless they become too popular and all of a sudden they implode because of their own success â?? information overload, too many books make the search for the book you want impossible.
But letâ??s not get carried away with early Sunday morning pessimism. If you know of a book which belongs on this wiki â?? add it. If the concept of book confuses you (which all concepts have done since the great Plato/Aristotle disagreement on the theory of forms) then you might be helped by the wiki definition.
By “book” we generally mean works over 35,000 words that are or have been commercially available in hardcopy and have an ISBN. We’ve expanded the definition in two added sections below, however, to include the most popular books published through do-it-yourself press Lulu, and “books” published on websites of established organizations or notable blogs.
(via Open Access News)
Here is a map of the Lebanon attacks on between July 12 â?? August 2
Click here for a larger map
For daily updates: lebanonupdates.blogspot.com
It sounds like a fictional mystery â?? just look at the ingredients: a lost manuscript about an ancient mariner sailing the Mediterranean (and beyond), fighting naval battles and piratesâ?¦
At the age of 16, Michael of Rhodes signed onto a Venetian galley in 1401 as a common oarsman. Over the next four decades he sailed on dozens of voyages, either in the war galleys of the Venetian navy, or in the commercial galleys of the merchant fleet. He rose in the ranks, attaining a number of different offices, including the highest rank a non-noble could have in Venetian service. In 1434, Michael sat down to write out the manuscript for which he is remembered. The Michael of Rhodes manuscript was lost for 400 years until it resurfaced in 1966 and again in 2000.
Today selected pages of the beautiful work are available online along with maps and illustrations. It’s not all there and it’s not CC licensed (or similar) but it’s a great site.
(via BibliOdyssey)
Incredible! The world seems to be in the process of erupting into more and more violence. Afghanistan is ongoing but rarely reported, Gaza has fallen in the shadow of Lebanon. Iraq shows no sign of stabilising. Not to mention the hotspots in the rest of the world.
So when the world leaders meet in the G8 conference in St Petersburg one expects that the gravity of world affairs will ensure that the world leaders would act with an enhanced level of decorum that maybe could reflect the situation.
What does Bush do? Itâ??s unbelievable!!!
The actions of little George are totally unacceptable even if it was in the privacy of his own office and the victim was the office temp. But Angela Merkel is not the office temp but she is the German Chancellor. The unwelcome actions of George Bush go beyond ugly sexism and condescending male-female relations. The actions are an inexcusable insult on Germany. Actually it could be interpreted as the patronising US attitude towards the rest of the world.
More on this Unfogged, Bild.t, The News Blog, Talking Points Memo.
(via Bitch PhD)
The blog against torture campaign asked people to write posts against torture on their blogs during the month of June. Obviously such a campaign did not end the problem – even if it did create awareness. The organisation is attempting to continue the campaign. Here is an email I recieved on the subject:
…One of our bloggers, Heathlander, has generously
volunteered to go 24 hours without sleep — blogging continuously the
whole time — to raise money for Amnesty International USA. It’s all
part of Blogathon 2006 (http://www.blogathon.org/), which will be held
across the globe on 29th July.Would you like to help us out? Here’s some things that you can do:
– Join Heathlander and stay up with him for 24 hours of continuous blogging!
If you’d like to help Heathlander stay awake and write posts, leave
a message here.
Why not! Its for a good cause…
Florian Mueller has written the book No Lobbyists as Such – The War Over Software Patents in the European Union its available online and licensed under Creative Commons. It’s the perfect book for those of us who have not followed the process from the start and are daunted by the task of having to learn about the whole process by ourselves.
(via Free the Mind)
OK â?? so articles that begin with the title â??The Death ofâ?¦â?? have a tendency to be alarmist. Despite this the recent news that Dr. Martin Luther Kingâ??s estate is about to auction off his papers (10 000 papers) creates thoughts in this direction. (via On the Commons)
The main fear is that the collection of sermons, speeches and papers that King wrote between 1946-1968 (including drafts of â??I Have a Dreamâ??) will be bought by an investor and then sold off in pieces to the highest bidders. The economics of this is totally logical it will raise the most money. The downside is that this amazing collection will be spread making research difficult, and maybe impossible. As part of a collection a small note written by Dr King is a valuable addition. Taken on itâ??s own it is worth little and can be maltreated and eventually lost â?? as history has often shown.
This is indeed a death of memory.
The second part of the death of memory concerns the digitisation of communications. Since the dissemination of computers there has been a dramatic rise in communication and creativity. The general impression is that more and more people are writing and creating different forms of creative works. In addition to this more of our photographs are stored on digital storage devices. What are the implications of the shift to digital storage devices?
Cuneiform writing on clay tablets can still be read today after over 4000 years. Through this we have been able to read the Hammurabi code of law and the Gilgamesh epic and legends. (UPenn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology). Older books have a relatively long life expectancy in particular those printed on paper made from cloth rags. â??Ordinaryâ?? paper is less enduring and in particular modern paper since the acid remains in paper made between 1850 and 1950 cause this paper to slowly disintegrate (actually a slow burning acid fire) (Wikipedia). Microfilm and Microfiche have a life expectancy of 500+ years but in reality this is substantially lower due to wear and tear by users. Magnetic tape, Videotape, Magnetic disk and Optical disk will last less than 30-40 years.*
Stored digital photos will not be recovered from dumpsters and garage sales (Swapatorium) since they will have become unreadable as well as deteriorated.
All information storage forms require that the reader be able to understand the data. In the case of cuneiform tablets it is necessary to understand the written language. In the case of technologies such as tapes and microfilm it is also necessary to maintain functioning equipment that will be able to read the stored data. In the case of digital equipment it is necessary to save both the hardware and the software.
A good way to begin to understand the magnatude of this problem is to look at the â??Mother Tonguesâ?? chart of the development of computer languages that shows the rise and fall of programming languages.
Who will save the hardware, software and knowledge to be able to auction my collected works stored on several decaying computers? Even if someone eventually would want to read itâ?¦
* Rothenberg, Jeff. ‘Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents’, Scientific American (Jan 1995): 24-29.
Yesterday (June, 12) the American Medical Association took an important ethical policy decision against medical participation in interrogations “Physicians must not conduct, directly participate in, or monitor an interrogation with an intent to intervene, because this undermines the physicianâ??s role as healer.â??
The UN has declared that the 26th June is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture – what are we going to do about it?
There is no single face of torture. Unfortunately there happens to be several examples of the cruelty and heartlessness of men (no gender bias intended). Examples include the statement by Rear-Admiral Harris about the three suicides of prisoners under his responsibility was â??â?¦not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfareâ?¦â?? or the comment of Nick Harvey when faced with the news that after WWII British troops had starved prisoners and tortured them with equipment taken from Gestapo prisons, says â??Itâ??s too late for anyone to be held personally responsible, or held politically to accountâ?¦â??
Ok so issues such as time, energy and emotional baggage tend to get in the way of a more active support. There is however a way of supporting without much effort. This is not a trivialisation – on the contrary it is the promotion of information to raise awareness. Not to let uncomfortable information slip into oblivion.
The group known as Torture Awareness Month has a blogrole going. By going to http://blogagainsttorture.blogspot.com/ and do two things:
All you need to do to join is (1) promise to do a blog post about torture in the month of June, (2) link to Torture Awareness Month somewhere your blog. Do both of these things, and we will link to you from our blogrolls.
Donâ??t forget to go to Torture Awareness Month to learn more about what is, and can be done, to raise awareness against torture. But don’t stop there. The information about torture, its causes, effects and how to work against it.
Some background…
The United Nations has declared the 26 June to be International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The UN position against torture is based primarily on article 5 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, â??no one shall be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishmentâ??
This is further qualified by the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the sentiments are echoed in conventions such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which adds that: â??No one shall be subjected without his [or her] free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.â??
Denmark has launched Creative Commons license! Here is an excerpt from the press release:
On June 10, the Danish versions of the Creative Commons licenses were
launched in Copenhagen at a ceremony held in Politikens Foredragssal. At
the event, hosted by Copenhagen Business School, Professor Lawrence
Lessig (Chairman and CEO of Creative Commons) gave the keynote
address. The ceremony was sponsored by Copenhagen Business School, Bender
von Haller Dragsted law firm (www.bvhd.dk) and IBM Denmark (www.ibm.dk).Says Dr. Thomas Riis, â??The Creative Commons licenses will benefit the
cultural life in Denmark. Creators and users of everything from music,
weblogs and homepages to paintings and books will profit from the
licenses.â?? Dr. Jan Trzaskowski adds that â??the licenses make it much easier
and faster to exchange creative works, which falls perfectly in line with
the vibrant cultural life in today’s Denmarkâ??.
