Oh no doubt at all- I was more throwing my support around continued testing and trials. There aint no easy cure- and anything easy and free is probably not worth it. I've got to believe nature would have already evolved a solution if it was 'easy'...

My body also walled off all the tumors and tissue that had been affected- so I may have already been primed to attack the cells.

Who knows.

I underwent the experimental treatment in 1994 at the age of 17- I had Melanoma that had metastasized to my lymph nodes. Each doctor I spoke with basically said I'd be dead.

You'll note the year- 1994- and it is now 2009. I'm celebrating my 15 year anniversary of having my 'face lift' and 7 hours of surgery to remove all of the cancer, salivary gland, neck muscles, and lymph nodes from the right half of my head. My wrestling career is over (it never got off the ground, hahaha!) but I'm alive.

Not only that, I've lived long enough to get married and have a daughter.

Was the treatment effective? Hard to say. I certainly reacted during the treatment- a couple of irradiated cancer cells and some crab blood had a MASSIVE reaction on my body- I could barely move the day after each injection. I was told that the treatment wasn't promising and that no further trials were done.

So, having been through it- I'll tell you that I believe it worked in my case. I also gained super human resistance to colds and flus afterwards for about 5 years.... unfortunately since my wife and I have had our little 'germ factory' I know now that I'm paying for that immunity with every cold I've gotten since.

(I did have one side effect- tooth pain. Excruciating, body numbing, on the floor curled up in fetal position tooth pain. Just give me the pliers already)

Yes, yes, yes- everyone holds up that particular case as a shiny bright sword.

Unfortunately it is not the same- we know none of the technical details of what was done with the UK works- not to mention the UK work was done in- the UK.

Thus factually we do not have enough information to make a determination- and regardless I stand by my statement- the guy is a schmuck for doing what he did.

... and then bitch when I rip the paper while trying to remove it.

The images are unambiguously in the public domain? How so? The museum seems to think otherwise- and I (as a photographer and somewhat knowledgeable in copyright law for photography) tend to agree.

The moment a photographer presses the shutter button to capture an image the photographer owns the right to the image. The photographer- not the corporation who hired them. In some countries a blind photographer can tells someone else to press the shutter button and the blind photographer owns the copyright.

Now the photographer can assign rights, as per a contract, to the entity that has hired them to do the photography work- and that assignment can be irrevocable, single use, multi use, first press, etc. But no matter what when that button went down a copywritten work was created.

So what we have here is a very confusing summary of a legal letter claiming that the museum owns the copyrights and had the original, full size images taken by the photographer, available online but not directly linked. Their excuse is abhorrent, IMHO, to claim that knowing how to use a URL and download something is illegal. I don't think they have a leg there- but not knowing the particulars about the contract signed, who funded it (I'm assuming it was public dollars, but that's an assumption), the business relationship between the photographer and the museum... I think it's a very big stretch to claim their assertions are without merit.

A photographer lighting artwork may (and this comes from experience) spend hours trying to get all the nuances of the painting recorded properly. What would you say if the photographer had to take 9 consecutive images at different exposures and merge them all into a HDR-type image, then spend hours rendering it down to sRGB to view correctly on the screen. Brush strokes can reflect light- perhaps he had to cross-polarize shots carefully.

What I'm saying is that a photo of a painting is still considered a copyrightable item- you may wish it to be derivative to the 'public domain' but if that were the case any photograph in front of a public domain piece of work would automatically be public domain- and it is clearly not.

We don't know all the story, but it is very evident to me that he crossed the line. Intentions are good- I admire it- but definitely did something that was not in the spirit of wiki and may be against the law.

And no, whomever marked my other comments troll- this is not a troll. Just because I'm taking a stand against what you think "Free is right all the time" doesn't make me a troll. I'm providing thoughtfully logically laid out information for additional discussion.

I just re-read the letter- they're claiming he downloaded the images that someone else took and uploaded them to Wiki. That is a clear violation in every sense of the law- he doesn't own the images (public domain) and he is using someone elses work without attribution.

I was under the impression he had taken the photos himself and uploaded them. If that's not the case then he's an idiot and really ought to do the right thing here- remove them- and redirect them to the museum's website.

There may be some room for negotiation but I'd say he's starting from a deep hole.

Sorry for misreading it- editors could do a little better job editing story titles to reflect what is actually happening rather than just putting their spin on it.

I have a modified IR camera I use that I built to photograph artwork- it's amazing what you can sometimes see 'underneath' the paints the artist chose.

In one gallery in Germany I saw a work of art in IR that had been severely damaged and retouched- it was clearly evident in the IR photograph but not in the VIS photograph. I showed them to the curator (I spoke no German and he spoke no English) and tried to ask what had happened to it in its history (as there was no statement of that on the work).

I swear the man was going to shit a brick. He had a look of pure panic on his face when he saw the IR photograph- I think he immediately ran up there to check on it. I don't think he understood what he was seeing (not surprising) so my wife and I left ASAP.

Now to me, IR would bring value- so would UV photographs of the artwork. I know there are places that can do this much more professionally ... but hey, a hobby is a hobby.

The museum is out of line. In a 'real world' they'd lose. They'll probably respond by banning photography and forcing anyone that does want to do shots to sign a waiver.

On September 12, 2008, co-defendant Morton Sobell admitted that he and Julius Rosenberg were guilty of spying for the Soviet Union. He believed Ethel was aware of the espionage, but did not actively participate.[7]

? Did I miss something here- they were guilty of espionage.

I think he got off lightly. What's worse now is all the crap the REST of us will have to deal with because this fuck-nit couldn't follow the warnings and restrictions set forth by his company.

Actually, what is worse is everyone else- there are 1800 people in my company alone. We each have to take 3 hours of ITAR/EAR training, AT LEAST- I think I've done about 10 hours in the past year. That money gets charged to the government.

Guess who pays it? Guess who's gonna pay even MORE because of this nitwit.

... but most of the heavy lifting is going to come from genetically engineered microbes.

I've been following with interest the bacteria that was recently revived from the ice core samples. The assumption (logical or not) is that if they can survive that extreme situation they may be adapted to this sort of extreme condition.

With GE we can introduce traits, perhaps not as specific as we'd like, but still to tailor the needs. Bacteria that can break down iron oxide into Fe or other easily smeltable materials- that could extract gold (there has been some postulation that 'tracer' gold is nothing more than bacterial waste). We already have some plants that can selectively uptake metals and sequester them in the cellulose - but then breeding those with any other traits destroyed the character set that was capable of doing so.

I should also state I'm a fan of Mars from KSR- and if we start introducing extremophile bacterial colonies we may never find out if life evolved on that planet. I for one am waiting for that little tidbit and the Vatican's response (I expect it to be something along the lines of "Not intelligent thus God discarded the world as unsuitable", but I digress).

I say go for it... but I'd really really really want to know that the lab doing the work was fully set up to prevent accidental releases. While an extremophile may not like the conditions outside as too energetic... I'd hate to find out they're quickly adaptable - with those cell walls specifically thickened and hardened to handle UV (another assumption on my part) as well as low pressure they might just turn out to be a bitch to kill. Then again, keeping them in conflict with the UV sterilizer lights might just be the way to grow them hardier :)

at the end that says "You're free to go".

That's a man that knows the law. I admire his statement and his tone of voice. He listened, asked 1 question, and answered.

I respect that.

The jackasses earlier in the audio recording, not so much. They're too shit-full of themselves... and they know they are breaking the law and thus avoid stating so.

This audio recording is priceless- because without it we'd have no proof. It's a pity the audio was released now- they should have waited until the court case to display it AFTER the affidavits were taken.

My driveway is 2 car wide, 2 car long- so 1 mile, 100,000$ = 19$/foot. Most of the quotes I've gotten want 4K to redo it. 50 feet is just under 1k.

Anyways....

Some folks I've worked with get so wrapped up in the details or the fun of the project they forget the point- which may be what holds this up. Some of MS's interface stuff for voice and disability is pretty slick - but slick isn't functional and everything is still driven by the keyboard and mouse.

Now I've seen some exciting hardware that can interface to the tongue to display images (poor res) but basically it's rewiring the brain for a different type of input channel.

Who's got the time and money to build these? Not your average geek- and who's going to spend the weeks in deprivation to test it? Well, they might.... but not most folks I know. And if something goes south?

The best approach is to have a brain trust- a site that a research can come to and, with NDA's in place (I have reasons for that) With those NDAs in place then the researcher can say something like "I have this hardware and I need to be able to do..."

And thats when the power of the internet comes into play- the amount of research and pure power that can be drawn down to a single thread would crush through any difficulties- EE's, CE's, IE's, heck even your plain psychologists (if they hang out here) can bring talent to bear.

My thoughts, of course.

I mentor HS students. Most that I deal with are so incredibly incompetent that I am truly afraid for our society- these babies will be asking their parents to carry them out into the world with no prep.

There are kids that don't know what a screwdriver is or how to use it. Seriously. I had to hold a session on how to use a screwdriver. Gave them a drill with a bit in it and they could not figure out how to drive the screw into the wood.

This is also the group that would intentionally break their cell phones so their parents could pay the 50$ 'insurance fee' to get a new one. Just repeatedly drop the thing over and over and over and over.

I also watched one of them stare at the table saw blade as it was rotating- asked him what he was doing- and he said he knows he's not supposed to but he was wondering if he could tap the blade while it was spinning- if he was fast enough (look up table saw finger injuries- you'll understand why I was sickened).

Shop class, like gym class, should be mandatory for all students. So what if all they turn out is a crummy pencil holder- they did it. Want to make shop more interesting? Show them how to do CNC on wood- that's programming and wood working all in one go.

Right now this generation is nothing but consumption- they'll play their ipods, their little online games, and they go on to college coddled the entire way without a single original thought in their body.

Then again, perhaps I only see the stupid ones.

I have a new 1.5 tb HD that, before I format, I may very well go ahead and try a new install and see if it works out of the box.

That's not to say that I don't have alot of faith but more along the lines that because of the way the video card works (nVidia) I have to use the proprietary driver- and it won't sync to the TV, which means I can not use it unless it starts x-windows... and I just don't really care to haul my monitors around.

Thanks for the update.

That was my problem :)

Seems I spawned quite a bit of hate by relating my problems. As usual the linux zealots miss the point: A 4 year old motherboard with sound out is completely mis-read by the system and unrecognized.

I want a driver for XP? Sure thing- go search the 'net for it, download, and install.

I want a device to work in Linux? Go read a man page and if you don't get it right then, according to the folks I've seen here, go back to XP because you don't hack it... ... and to think I work to administer unix systems...