the pod bay door

A recent judgement by the High Court of Australia may not bode well for bloggers, who are rapidly growing accustomed to expressing whatever they feel in their blogs. Joseph Gutnick, an Australian mining magnate, was the subject of an article published in the Oct 28, 2000 Barron’s Online (and in the print equivalent journal, dated Oct 30 2000). Having considered the article defamatory, he sued in Australian court for damages.

The question was, would the fact that the publication of the article originated outside of Australia (on a server in New Jersey) prevent the lawsuit from proceeding, since the story was downloaded in Australia? The Court said no, and ruled that a lawsuit could be filed in Australia against Dow Jones & Co, who own Barron’s. Dow Jones appealed, and the appeal was dismissed. Opinions in favour of the judgement and against are appearing in increasing numbers. The growing concern is what some consider an impending threat to what the Internet provides for millions: a platform for free speech and expression. Some are saying the judgement could be critical, because it opens anyone who expresses an opinion of someone or something in another country to be subject to that country’s libel laws.

Someone likes the name of this blog.

FilmWise is a nifty site that poses movie quizzes, including Invisibles, wherein they digitally remove the bodies of actors from scenes, leaving only their clothing. You try to guess from which movie each scene is. Here’s the latest quiz. Good luck.

A library specializing in the history of artificial intelligence, whose collection was built over a 20 year period by one librarian in particular, together with 150 work stations and equipment worth over £500,000 was destroyed by fire in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Dec 14th. Ouch! As a fellow librarian, I empathize with how hard it must be to come to terms with such a loss.

In Florida, a manufacturer is producing a set of trading cards which feature portraits of victims of the Sept 11 attacks. He apparently has the approval of the families of each victim shown on the individual cards, which will sell for $2.50US each. Families will receive 8% royalties. The manufacturer denies he is cashing in on tragedy, but rather, is “providing a service to these families.” Do you agree? I don’t – I think it’s really difficult to justify this. I might be more amenable if all the profits went to charity after costs, but that isn’t possible when a for-profit enterprise is behind such a product.

Today in NYC, another seven new plans for the rebuilding of the WTC site were unveiled. My first reactions are not that positive, but I believe I need to study the designs further. The design from Richard Meier and Partners appears as an enormous hash mark from a distance, for example. You can see them here, and vote for your choice. Clicking on each entry opens another window with different views of the proposed sites, and each graphic within the new window moves while you are looking at it, a nice touch. (Warning: pop-up windows)