diary entry
A mildly scary but educational lesson in copyright.
Yikes.
I logged on to find an email informing me I was using an image on my anthropology blog in violation of copyright laws. This was a bit of a shock. So after a cup of tea, I wrote a polite apology in response. The people were very civil about it, apparently they were quite okay with me using the image as long as I quoted the source and asked permission. They also thought my blog was wonderful, which was nice. But it was a useful warning.
So, now what do I do? 50% of my anthropology blog is images, another 30% is cut and paste science news and DNA studies.
After half a day reading up on copyright law, I have switched all my posts to private, so I can edit them safely. I realise that I’ve committed so many copyright violations I could be sued blind. So, here are some basic guidelines..
- Don’t be lazy… If you see an interesting news item , re-word it. Take the time.
- Don’t copy the entire item.. Quotes are fine, but not the entire article. Science and news articles (EXCEPT THOSE FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS) are generally okay. Factual information is slightly less bound by copyright, so a larger quote is okay. But you can’t reproduce the entire thing without permission. So, the summary from a study, but not the entire text. You’ll find yourself on stronger ground if you are doing something that is reporting news or scholarly, and not for profit
- You can post some of it… If the purpose is parody or a criticism or a reference, but still, the less of it the better.
- Find stuff in the public domain… It’s a lot safer. What this means practically is searching for images in free photo sites.
- If you substantially alter an image, you’ll probably be okay.. Like sticking a different head on a politician’s body for a joke. This is called ‘transformative’. The humour aspect takes it into the ‘parody’ area too. You’ll should be okay with thumbnails, as they were recently defiined as transformative by a judge.
- If you want to store an entire item on your blog for your own reference.. Tick the ‘keep this post private’ box on the ‘write post’ page. I use my blog to store a lot of DNA studies and images, like a neatly ordered folder. It might not be 100% legal, but you aren’t publishing it and no-one will know about it.
Free photo sources on line.
So, it will probably take me a couple of weeks to rewrite and source my blog images. It’s a pain in the bum, but I won’t have to worry about being hunted down by copyright lawyers. It might actually improve my blog, the poor regulars won’t have to wade through pages of DNA studies now.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )I have been distracted by earthbag housing..
This weekend. I saw one of the houses being built on line, and it looks like something even I could manage. I’m seriously considering using the technique in the garden to built the kids a play house. Could you lay a patio with it? There’s a thought. Walls?
It’s also known as superadobe. The basic method is laying a coil of earth filled bag in a circle, eventually building it up into a dome or a pointed dome. Barbed wire is used to grip the layers together. An arched room can also be achieved. Apparently it’s ludicrously cheap to build. I’ve seen a build cost of $950 for one 4m dome. So, I’ve bought a book from Amazon on the subject.
Isn’t this just as cute as a button. Even if it looks a bit like a teapot. And here it is being built.
My eldest child now wants me to build her a little house just like it in the garden.
I’ve already designed my new dream superadobe house on paper. Will it support a turf roof, I wonder?
I’ve also got a major crush on this house, cost about £60 per msq.
I just love that roof and ceiling.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 9 so far )Sports day.
Here I am, camcorder in hand ready to record my little princess’s egg and spoon race and ‘throwing bags into a hoop’. I’m taking an iced drink, it’s baking out there.
I’ve had Razib comment on my blog (honoured), I’d do the same but I can’t figure how to work out the comments on his site ( a moment of tragic dimness, we all have them).
I’m going to start an experiment with slug murdering. Does it have to be alcohol? Will any sweet sickly liquid entice them? I shall start with the cheapest fizzy pop I can find (really sugary). Then I’ll have a go at cola. Cider is just too expensive to use routinely. The number of casualties has gone down to about four or so a night now, I must have got most of the slimy buggers the first night (62 of them in four traps).
I’ve finally got the tomatoes outside, and the runner bean replants seem to have survived. The girl can help me with the lettuce etc later. She loves gardening.
Mr Mathilda has gone a touch puple over ‘there’s no such thing as a romantic blowjob’. It’s not like I posted a photo of him (yet). What does it really say? That he’s got a wife who’ll oblige and he’s well hung. Most men brag about that kind of thing. He’s just so senstive…
I am definitely the butch one (personality wise) in our relationship.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Fewer slugs, thank god.
I must have killed most of the damn things the night before. So far I’ve only had about 15 in the traps today. Trap number 4 seems to be by far the most lethal, with 12 in it. It’s got very steep sides. I think I’ll swap numbers 1-3 over to my little glass pots to se if they catch more.
I’ve got to plant out my last seeds and seedlings now…baby carrots, salad onions, lettuce and late corn. but it’s just too sticky out there.
I got moaned at by a contact on Yahoo answers for saying ‘psychologists generally agree’, about there being a lower black IQ. I don’t write this stuff if I don’t know it, thank you very much. So I’ve blogged the psychologists statements and a poll of their opinions on IQ and and race on M37. The standard view is that the racial differnces in IQ are at least partly genetic (45%), the ‘all environment camp’ came out at about 15%, most of the rest were ‘don’t know/didn’t answer’. I don’t blame them for not admitting it inpublic though, they do get ripped into by the media if they do.
What’s interesting is that Stephen J Gould, writer of ‘The Mismeasure of Man’, wasn’t actually a qualified psychologist. But his views are held up as representative of mainstream psychologists, when they are actually the opposite. Can’t trust the media!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Mathilda 62, slugs nil.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeew. And then some more eeeeeeeeeew.
I tipped out my slug traps this morning, and I couldn’t believe it. Four traps produced 62 of the little sods, pickled in sweet cider. I have to say, cider works better than beer, but maybe it’s because this was extra strong cider. This is a bit expensive to do every day though. So I’ve bought some cheap instant coffee with which to lace the ground around my plants. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe I got the bulk of them last night (you’d hope.) How many slugs can there be in one garden?
Next year the beer traps go out with the seedlings.
So, how do Buddhists garden? You can’t stick a spade into the dirt without slicing up at least one living thing, and it’s essentially to use some kind of pest control, or your plants will just get eaten.
I finished reading a Terry Pratchett book, ‘Thud’. Not one of his better ones, I preferred ‘Going Postal’ (3 for 2 at Waterstones). One day I will finish that Dawkins book I started the other day. It’s a good read, but better dipped into than blasted through. If you try to read ‘The God Delusion’ all in one sitting your brain will start to cook off.
So, since there’s not been any ‘look at the new doctor!’ hype from the BBC, I’m guessing we aren’t getting a new doctor, and he’s not actually regenerating. I’m fairly fond of Tenant in the role, but I preferred Chris Ecclestone, ears and all. I hope they get an actor to stick with it for a decent length of time. My childhood was the excellently insane Tom Baker. There’s just something not quite human about him….
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )How to murder slugs.
This is war. I’ve finally had it up to here with the damned things. They’ve totally stripped my runner beans and cucumbers, and I have to prepare some weapons.
So, I tried out the beer traps last night, with heart warmingly lethal results. A total of nine dead in just two traps. One trap was suspiciously empty of liquid… I think the cat drank it (hic).
A little online research shows that slugs also hate ashes (caustic potash) and caffeine. So, come tomorrow I shall take a trip into Tescos and but up all the cheapest crappy ground coffee I can find, and lace the soil around my new plantings with it. Caffeine is poisonous to slugs and snails, apparently. I am preparing to commit mass slugicide. I think I’ll use the beer and coffee, just to be sure.
Slugs flee from a dose of caffeine
Tim Radford.
US scientists may have found in a cup of coffee the solution to the gardener’s most remorseless enemy. They report in Nature today that slugs can be killed by sprayed water containing up to 2% caffeine.
They tested soil dampened with a 2% caffeine solution – the strength of expresso coffee – and found that after three hours and 30 minutes, 75% of the slugs had left the contaminated soil. After 48 hours, 92% were dead and the remainder had disappeared.
Growers have experimented with ways to discourage these molluscs without poisoning other wildlife with commercial slug pellets – using a variety of means from garlic in liquid paraffin, to grapefruit skins and beer traps.
But Robert Hollingsworth, an agricultural researcher in Hilo, Hawaii, discovered the killer cappuccino effect as he and his colleagues searched for a safe way of discouraging a tree frog from pot plants. They found their caffeine solution also killed large slugs.
Slugs were able to discriminate between treated and untreated leaves, and so their feeding was cut – at a solution mix “of only 0.01% caffeine“.
The scientists say the liquid will deter and kill molluscs without hurting ants, ladybirds and spiders, but that the 2% mix causes leaf yellowing on ferns, bromeliads and lettuce.
So, easy with coffee near the lettuce then.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )A day out that didn’t go well, and Mesolithic European Agriculture.
First of all the girl was whiny as hell before we left. and I’m talking ‘seriously thinking of calling the whole day off’ whiny. But, it wouldn’t have been fair to punish her brother, so off we went.
After the moaning session that the visits to McDonalds triggered (fight over ice cream) they played in the sandpit for about an hour. But then our plan to visit the paddling pool was sunk by it being closed for repairs. So, we went to the beach instead.
Twenty minutes later we’d stopped the gushing blood from the cut on the girls foot. Note to self, the kids wear jellies when paddling in the sea from now on.
So, Mr Mathilda called NHS direct, and apparently a properly vaccinated seven year old doesn’t need a tetanus shot, as they are well covered by their standard childhood vaccinations. Well, she’s walking on the foot, so she doesn’t seem in a bad way. I’d like to send out good karma to the nice lady on the beach who had the sterile dressing and tape.. you’re a real hero!
Played with Dawns? little baby Jacob. He’s a real gurner, and loves to grab earrings. You forget how soft babies are until you stroke their hair. Made me a bit broody. I’ll get over it though. I’m in no condition to be getting pregnant again.
I found a seriously interesting article about pollen levels in Mesolithic Europe (ice age still going). Apparently there’s a lot of cereal pollen at the time, enough to make some archaeo-botanists suspect that agriculture in Europe is a lot older than the Neolithic. Unfortunately, Europe is very damp, and you generally don’t get any plant material preserved at these site. You’ll have to get people pulling the coprolites apart for content, or they’ll have to find charred wheat grains to prove it. Also, the housing from Mesolithic Europe was very different; big long houses, not little round ones, that suggest a separate culture in place before the Neolithic ‘package’ arrived about 8k ago. Interestingly, a domesticated cattle bone has been found in Ireland 8k old, so this really makes the arrival of agriculture in Europe hard to date exactly.
I’m also really starting to think that growing nut trees was Europe’s first foray into agriculture (silviculture, technically). There’s a big lump in the amount of hazelnut pollen in the late Mesolithic in Europe. It’s accepted that it was because of humans, but as accidental dropping of stored nuts. I don’t think it was accidental. I think that spending a couple of hours out of each year planting hazel nuts and maybe clearing away the competition would make a lot more sense to a hunter gatherer than hours of back breaking labour every day to raise a wheat crop. I think it was hazelnuts in Europe, almonds and pistachios in Anatolia. This helps to make sense of the incredibly early age for copper working in Europe (7,500 years old, and it’s definitely older, those were not primitive forges they were using in Serbia).
Also, the lentils found in Francthi cave were slightly bigger than wild ones… a clue to an early domesticate, as it takes lentils a lot longer to change size than grains.
I’ll post that piece on the Himba later, it just needs tarting up a bit. The Himba women are really good looking! And according to the Red Cross workers in Namibia, they generally have a couple of lovers on the side to amuse them when the husband is away (it was an article on HIV).
I’m too crampy to think straight…
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Cuddy pole-danced for House!
Other than the surprise revelation at the end of last night’s episode being totally ruined by channel five showing Amber in the bus crash in the trailer..
This episode was one for the record because of Cuddy’s pole dancing scene, dressed as a school girl. All I can say is Lisa Edelstein is seriously fit!
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So, the anthropology blog breaks 300 hits a day, and blond Egyptians.
Which is pretty respectable. Dienekes seems to get about 900+, and my blog is pretty small compared to his. I admit, a lot of it is a beginners introduction to lost/odd peoples. So far, the Jarawa and Onge have pulled in the most hits overall. Putting in a lot of pictures seems to help pull in the punters too. Quite a few times I come up within the first few sites on google for stuff. How do they work that out, anyway? Who goes where? I mean. I admit, I’m usually going for a magaziney feel to the pages. I compose them the way I do for my own benefit though, so I can keep all my research binges in nice accessible little on line files. My memory isn’t what is was (MS takes it’s toll) so now I actually have to keep notes! The horror of it.
I should have called it ‘anthropology and archaeology’ blog. But anthropology always leads you into archaeology. You need to understand the ancient population movements, so this sends you rooting through old papers on digs. Archaeology is just anthropology with wellies on.
During one of my endless wrangles with afrocentrists, I once said (as a wind up) I could find more images of blond Egyptians than I could of life-like black ones (the sort you could see was meant to look like an individual, not stylised). This came about because I posted a lot of very life-like tomb statues of Egyptians, and they all looked just like modern Egyptians. I could only find a couple that looked lifelike and Negroid, and I really had a good search through Afrocentrist sites looking for them. All their ‘black’ Egyptians are monumental statues in black stone, or representations of Nubians (if you are familiar with the artwork, it get’s easy to spot them), or from the Nubian occupation of Egypt.
So for a giggle I’m going to post all the blond Egyptian images I can find here… this is just too silly for my anthropology blog. These are in no way representative of the normal ancient Egyptian, they mostly seemed to have black and brown hair, and were Semitic Caucasian for the most part (same as modern).
Tomb of Menna
Tomb of Userhat.
Tomb of Khui, 12th dynasty, with a basenji hound.
The tomb of Djehutihotpe, Deirel-Bersha, middle Kingdom.
Hetepheres II
Unknown, provenance uncertain.
There’s a few others around, and I’ll post them as I find them. the normal Afrocentrist reaction to images like these is to scream ‘fake’ because they show them to be wrong, then they start claiming that you often get blond black Africans….
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June 24th Tuesday.
The boy has passed out earlier than usual, still no joy enticing him onto the potty. On the upside, he seems a lot more interested in his books. I’m teaching him letters with the names of ‘Thomas the tank engine’ books. we’ve got J and T down now.
People seem to like my ‘Neolithic myths’ entry. I’m up to about 300 hits a day on MA. Not bad for a newbie.
I’ve had a look at the domestication of cattle. Some people are claiming that cattle found in Bir Kiseiba (near Aswan) about 9k ago were domesticated , but there’s no real evidence of it. If African cattle had been domesticated first you’d have got African humped cattle in neolithic Capeletti (Algeria), not Turkish ones. They seem to have been domesticated at a pretty late date, possibly because they had a better tolerance of African parasites/diseases/heat than the Turkish cows. The Eastern Zebu domestication may have been for the same reason, the local breed was better adapted to it’s environment( Mehrgahr, in the Indus Valley of Pakistan, about 7,000 years ago).
item on domestication of cattle
So where exactly did pottery come from??? Still looking for a radial date pattern from a central locus. Info is very hard to find.
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Mathilda's diary. 
