119011
submission
je ne sais quoi writes:
The Associated Press is reporting that Google has reverted the satellite maps of New Orleans to the pre-hurricane Katrina ones:
In the images available Thursday, the cranes working to fix the breach of the 17th Street Canal are gone. Blue tarps that covered roofless homes are replaced by shingles. Homes wiped off their foundations are miraculously back in place in the Lower 9th. So, too, is the historic lighthouse on Lake Pontchartrain.
Why would someone do such a thing? Google project manager Chikai Ohazama says:
...the maps now available are the best the company can offer. Numerous factors decide what goes into the databases, "everything from resolution, to quality, to when the actual imagery was acquired."
which is a suspicious non-answer. Did google screw-up? See for yourself.
107282
submission
je ne sais quoi writes:
MSNBC/Newsweek has an informative article summarizing a lot of the recent advancements in tracing the evolution of modern humans. From the article:
Unlike the earlier wave of Homo erectus into Asia a million years ago, the first modern humans, the ancestors of everyone today, departed Africa about 66,000 years ago... These pilgrims were strikingly few. From the amount of variation in Y chromosomes today, population geneticists infer how many individuals were in this "founder" population. The best estimate: 2,000 men. Assuming an equal number of women, only 4,000 brave souls ventured forth from Africa. We are their descendants.
The article emphasizes that evolution is not necessarily linear, in that a given trait might show up multiple times before being used by a successful species. We've come a long way from the old story of humanoid evolution that goes in a more or less linear chain from Australopithicus to Homo Sapiens.
61580
submission
je ne sais quoi writes:
The BBC is reporting that a group of record labels as filed a lawsuit in New York against allofmp3.com. It seems some of them aren't content with just stopping credit card payments and shutting it down but now they want their pound of flesh too. From the article:
The lawsuit was filed in New York on behalf of Arista Records, Warner Bros, Capitol and UMG recordings.
They are suing Moscow-based Mediaservices, which runs Allofmp3.com and another music site, allTunes.com.
The record labels say the sites are selling songs without permission. But Allofmp3.com argues it is paying royalties to a Russian licensing body.
What's really quite odd is this:
"The defendant's entire business... amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law," according to papers filed as part of the US legal action.
Why would New York law have anything to do with a Russian online store? Its not like New York can regulate trade with a foreign nation, that's a federal right, isn't it?
