Archive for the 'Social issues' category

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It is often believed that wide-ranging oceanic sharks are so fast and powerful that they are quite resilient when it comes to fishing pressure. Actually, this is quite the contrary. Most sharks are carnivorous and thus rely on the availability of a lot of animal food, they also tend to mature slowly (so all early catches tend to reduce the possibility of reproduction), they usually have a small number of offsprings.

However, this is not taken into account in fishing practices. Probably under the pressure of Asian countries booming markets and culture-related food habits (like the “shark fin soup”), sharks and rays are fished extensively out of any quotas or limitations. Nevertheless, their populations are depleting quickly. An international study, organised by the IUCN Shark Specialist Group (SSG), shows that within the 21 species studied, the extinction rate “is ten to a hundred times greater than historic extinction rates“.

They also make sound proposals for how to manage the situation (like “establishing and enforcing science-based catch limits for sharks and rays” or “ensuring an end to shark finning (removing fins and discarding bodies at sea)“).

Source: IUCN Shark Specialist GrouP.

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After years of preparation and beta-phase, finally, Wine has been able to reach launch as Wine 1.0. Why is it significant? Because this is the software package designed to be able to run many Windows applications from a GNU/Linux distribution. If you want to switch to Linux, you may not be willing to abandon some of the applications that were developped for Windows.

Wine is there to solve the problem. It runs many games and it runs Photoshop CS2 and CS3 from the box (I did not test it myself, though). It was the plain objective of Google when they allocated money and developers to support this project. They reached their goal.

It is probably the right time to try OpenSuse 11.0 (one of the best new Linux distributions) with Wine.

See also: Run Windows Apps in Linux with Wine 1.0.

A photographer must love his models to make the best possible portraits and to serve completely the models. This is all the more obvious when it comes to photographing celebrities and famous people.

Platon does a great job for this.

Source : Platon.
All photos are Copyright (c) Platon - All rights reserved.

This is the question or the hope that we can have after the opening of a legal investigation in Japan. A public prosecutor announced on last 19th of May that he decided to explore the observed operations of sale of whale meat to restaurants.

Greenpeace actively participates and there are many people hoping this to be the first step toward a true prohibition of Japanese whaling (even for “scientific” reasons).

Source: NewScientist.

…with this long list of proxies (unfortunately, some or many of them may not work for all people).

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I recently noticed (in the ads appearing in my web site; some are quite good) the web site of the Jaguar Research Center. I went in October 2007 to Brazil, in Pantanal, at the heart of the Jaguar Research Center. So, I wanted to give a small feedback about this experience.

This is certainly the location where it is easier to find jaguars, these large felines from South America. If you want to see these very discreet animals, you’d better contact the Jaguar Research Center or one of the travel agents that can send you there (like Objectif Nature, my preferred French travel agent for photo-nature trips).

I have to admit that the jaguar being very shy and despite the high concentration of these big cats in Pantanal, it is somewhat difficult to find them: In October 2007, our photo group did not see it once in three days (even if the trackers and a boat of the supporting organisation saw it nearly every day).

All in all, it’s not so desperate even for a photographer like me who was really willing to catch a few fur spots on the digital sensor of my camera. Along with the flagship feline of the South American continent, this zone is a marvellous water paradise, with the Cuiaba, wide Brazilian river, and many calm locations to observe birds and other animals.

So, I heartily recommend the Jaguar Research Center and I will probably return to JRC -with the hope of finally meeting some free jaguars. And their web site is very nice.

If you are a whisky lover, here are a few links you may appreciate:

• The Scotch Malt Whisky Guide, with an excellent little historic guide to whisky that is perfectly written for those who discover this strong alcohol.
• the web site of the Scotch Whisky Association if you want to share your passion with other amateurs.

But this is not enough for some people (real alcohol geeks). Wired discovered that true US amateurs are pushing sunday afternoon distillery in a country where moonshine is still prohibited. It’s quite easy, and the result is supposed to be very good.

Here is a startling idea to ensure that your luggage will not be lost at the airport and will receive real good treatment from the airline personnel (that is a rare condition). Matt Brandon proposes to declare the presence of a starter pistol. Right! you don’t need a permit or a license of any case, but it is still classified as a firearm and needs to be delcared on checking-in. TSA and other official authorities will identify your bag and ensure that it is the object of all cool attention (they don’t want any weapon potentially lost in an international airport!)

For once, the a… from security will make sure your bags fly securely.

Source: Jon Udell.

When you have a web site, it becomes quite common that some people feel so easy to just borrow your images that they do not even take the time to make a copy on their own web site. Not only do they use your artwork, but they also use the bandwidth you paid for.

Normally, there is a solution. You can modify slightly your website to ensure that if this happens, the image served is not the original one, but a modified one (either a big red X, or a message to the reader). But it is a little difficult to do by hand. A wbe site tool comes handy for this: HTMLbasix - Htaccess Disable Hotlinking Code Generator.