Quetrupillán Volcano is one of many in Chile’s lakes and volcanoes region. This landscape of fuming volcanoes and emerald green lakes, ancient forests and steaming hot springs lies in central Chile, between northern Atacama – the driest place on Earth – and southern Patagonia. Settled thousands of years ago by the native Mapuche people, the area has ten volcanoes, scores of lakes and white-water rivers, and ten national parks and reserves. Photograph by Robert B. Haas, National Geographic.
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“We got any Darwin fans in the house?”
— Baba Brinkman, a performer at Rock Beyond Belief. The gathering marked the first time the U.S. military hosted an event expressly for soldiers and others who don’t believe in God.
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This chart shows a distribution of 2500 newly printed fiction books selected at random from Amazon’s warehouses.
This is an interesting graph I saw on Linked In today. Paul Heald, a law professor at the University of Illinois, was curious how copyrights apply to older works of literature in the new digital age. In other words, if an outfit like Amazon publishes a long out-of-print book in digital format, can the author – or his or her heirs – claim copyright infringement? In a speech he gave to the University of Canterbury on March 16, Heald pointed out that most books published since 1923 have copyrights. But, he also noted that there are just as many books with copyrights in the first decade of the 21st century as there were in the decade from 1910 to 1920. It’s a significant observation with a global impact, considering how the publishing industry is moving more and more towards digital formats. As always, it seems standard laws can’t keep up with technological advances.
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Flowers line the steps of a cathedral in Girona, Spain, along the Costa Brava region, for last year’s “Temps de Flors” festival. The annual spring gathering sees an explosion of colorful flowers that clutter Girona’s patios and gardens and surround a number of public buildings. This year’s event will be held May 12 – 20. Photo courtesy David Adamson.
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“We are updating our economic model, but we are not talking about political reform.”
– Marino Murillo, a top government official in Cuba, after Pope Benedict XVI visited the communist nation and called for a more open society.
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Gaius Plinius Secundus, or Pliny the Elder, was a Roman officer and author of Natural History, the first published encyclopedia of the natural world. Pliny was born around A.D. 23 in the region in Italy known then as Gallia Transpadana. Not much is known about his early life or his family, except that his father apparently was very affluent, which allowed Pliny to study and attend school. Like all young men of his time, he entered the military, leaving home at age 21 and traveling to Gallia Belgica. Since he was from an affluent background, he naturally ascended to the rank of officer, serving in Germania Inferior, or Lower Germany. His military career provided him with plenty of personal adventures, but it also endowed him with an appreciation for the human and natural worlds. He observed a great deal and read even more. After years of culling data from a variety of sources, he composed his Natural History.
For over a thousand years, Pliny’s work was considered to be an authoritative compendium of human knowledge. While Pliny only knew the world from his own experiences, Natural History is proof what an ambitious, curious and educated mind can accomplish. The Folio Society is selling the complete Natural History at a discounted rate for members. This is somewhat ironic, considering that Encyclopedia Britannica recently announced that it will cease producing its paper volume set. But, for those of us who’ve adapted to the electronic age without getting addicted to it, the Folio Society announcement is priceless. I have several Folio-produced books and can say with all honesty and total bias that Kindle has nothing on them.
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“So can the government require you to buy a cell phone because that would facilitate responding when you need emergency services?”
– Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in oral arguments last week over the Obama Administration’s health care reform law. The Court is expected to announce its final ruling in June.
Personally, I support Obama on many issues, including the health care effort, but he and the Democratic Party have overstepped their bounds on this one. I only have an issue with the legal requirement that everyone buy health insurance. As someone who’s been unemployed for the better part of a year, I can’t imagine figuring health care into my already stretched budget. I have to wonder how much it would cost me (COBRA would have been a $300 monthly expense) and what the government would do to me if I refused to buy into it. I mean, seriously! What are they going to do? Put me in a time out? I’ve had to deal with workplace politics my entire adult life, now this?
