Sharing photos, videos, vintage images I've discovered, and -- occasionally -- commentary and thoughts from retired life and travels.

commentary

Update 3/24/2012 — I’m reconsidering my concern over Pinterest. Pinterest has come out with revised terms and is working on making private pinboards available.

I’ve developed a Pinterest Policy page.  Most pages here will be open for pinning, though the front page, archives, and selected pages will have it blocked.

A Pinterest pinboard, to me, is an online, published compilation of images that someone has collected.   It’s sort of like a published scrapbook.  If ya publish it, ya need to have the rights to publish the individual items in the scrapbook (compilation).

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I don’t like it.

It’s a great concept – organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.

There’s just two big sticky problems.

Copyright

The first is called copyright infringement.

Pinterest is primarily based around collecting pictures.  In collecting images and “pinning” them on their pinboards, the Pinterest user is publishing copies of other peoples’ work.

Copyright of a photograph or drawing starts as soon as an image is fixed in some sort of permanent form.  For electronic images, that occurs as soon as an image is saved as a file.

Making copies of this file, including publishing it somewhere other than where it is intended, violates the exclusive right of the creator of the image to make and/or approve copies.  The right to copy is why it’s called copyright.  If you didn’t create it and didn’t get permission, then you don’t have a right to copy, you don’t have a right to pin.

Terms of Use

The other big problem is the Pinterest terms of use.

Under the terms of  use, if you use Pinterest, then you  “represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content.”

The terms of use also says none of your Pinterest activities “will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other proprietary or intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation.”

In other words, by the terms of use that everyone agrees to before they can use Pinterest, every user is saying they have the right or permission to use every single thing that they are putting on their pinboard.

Somehow I rather doubt that many users really understand or that they even actually read the terms of use, let alone this part.

Wikipedia has an interesting statement concerning Pinterest and the issue of copyright.

Pinterest has a notification system which allows copyright holders to request that content be removed from the site. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor status of Pinterest has been questioned given that it actively promotes its users to copy to Pinterest, for their perpetual use, any image on the internet. Pinterest users cannot claim safe harbor status and as such are exposed to possible legal action for pinning copyrighted material. (emphasis mine – MpG)

While it’s an interesting concept, given the present state of the internet and current copyright laws and treaties, the design of Pinterest by its very nature fosters unintended abuse of the intellectual property rights of others.

I’ve spent too much time researching and learning about copyright.  I ‘m going to have to take a pass on Pinterest.

Copy Right, Copy Sense

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Yes, but no.

Napoleon is believed by many to have been a shorty.  Perhaps so by today’s standards, but he was above average height for the period in which he lived.

During the Napoleonic wars, the British Tory press depicted Napoleon as shorter than average.  This perception took hold and persists to this day.  Napoleon complex is a supposed inferiority complex where short people compensate for lack of height with over-aggressive behavior.  The clichéd image of Napoleon in popular culture is of a comically short petty tyrant.

Napoleon

The misunderstanding over Napoleon’s height arose over the differences between the English and French systems of measurement.  The French Revolutionary government established the first legal basis for the metric system in 1795.  Implementation was poorly managed and the system was widely unpopular.

By imperial decree, in 1812, Napoleon instituted a revised system.  Under it, the pied (foot) was 1/3 metre, with 12 pouce (inches) in each pied.

While the French system of metre, pied and pounce were similar in concept to the English Imperial yard, foot and inch, the French units were actually 9.3% larger.

Under the 1812 French units, if Napoleon was about 5 pied (feet), 2 pouce (inches) in height, he would be just under 5 feet, 8 inches by the English system.  The average height of European men at the time was about 5 feet, 3 inches.

Perception misconception.

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This is one of those (secretive  s-h-h-h-h ) benchmarks that lots of folks seem to want to keep hush-hush, no more than whispered about, when they get there.Crying face

Not me.  I’d rather just face it (and get it over with) and embrace it (what more can you do?) fully.  Today, I turned sixty. Birthday cake

Every day, about 330 or so boomers reach this point.  Born in the 50s, radical in the 60s Peace (not me!) and early 70s, settled down in the Plate 80s, splurged in the Airplane90s, and lost our financial butts Storm cloud in the 2000s (not me Smile).

Supposedly sixty is the new 30 – or is that the new 40?  Rainbow I don’t know about that.  I think it’s just rationalization for some people, to make them feel better when they get there here.

I took another tack on dealing with this benchmark and it really helps to lessen the impact.  Over the last year, as the time  Clock grew closer and closer, I just more and more started thinking of my age as 60 instead of 59.  After all, since last summer sometime, I’ve actually been closer to 60 than 59.  Be right back

I don’t feel 60 – mentally or physically. Fingers crossed

Retirement? Still doin’ it – part time. Work


Check out Exit78 on Facebook.

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Scarlet fever is one of those illness that I thought modern medicine had virtually eradicated.

However, the truth is that scarlet fever, once a major cause of death, is still around, but is usually quite effectively treated with antibiotics.  Generally a childhood disease, scarlet fever is caused by toxins released by a bacteria called group A Streptococcus or “group A strep”, the same bacteria that causes strep throat.

Outbreak in Asia.

Over 400 cases of scarlet fever have been identified in Hong Kong in the last few weeks, with new cases being reported at about 25 a day.  Two deaths of young children have been attributed to the disease, a seven year old girl in May and a five year old boy in June.  Nearly all of the infections have been in children under the age of ten with most occurring in clusters in schools and child care centers.

Scarlet fever occurs every year in Hong Kong, but at much lower numbers.

A genetic mutation may be the cause of the outbreak. If so, it may be more difficult to control. Dr. Samson Wong Sai-yin, a University of Hong Kong assistant professor and medical microbiologist, told Hong Kong’s English daily, The Standard, “”It is the first time we have seen this kind of mutation in that particular type of Streptococcus.”

Besides Hong Kong, the disease is spreading through nearby regions of China and Macau.

Additional information:

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Headline--Next solar cycle may be weakest for centuries

In the last couple of days, hundreds of news articles have been reporting on the strange behavior of the sun.

Three new scientific papers released simultaneously June 14th suggest that our sun’s magnetic activity and sunspot cycle may be going somewhat dormant for a while – possibly several decades – resulting in a period of global cooling. The results were announced at the annual meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. [click to continue…]

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The tagline for this blog says that the blog is about sharing photos and images along with occasional commentary.

Lately, there’s not been much of any of any of that.

I’ve selected and randomly sorted a large number of my photos and collected images – and I’m going to start posting them on a fairly regular basis, starting tomorrow.  Some of the pictures will have appeared here before; most, though, will be posted for the first time.

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