JPGN House / Macedo, Gomes & Sobreira

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5 November 2012
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The owner of this house [Macedo, Gomes & Sobreira], at the South Lake residential district in Brasilia, had grown up on that same street. The window of his bedroom was opened to the view of the Paranoá Lake towards northwest, with the monumental zone of Brasília right at the opposite bank. He had witnessed the evolution of that landscape, and intended to keep living together with it. The house was almost fully elevated on piloti, on the edge of the height allowed by urban regulations, opening the view above the neighbours’ roofs — via ArchDaily

Human rights activists taught online tactics

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5 November 2012
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An international training institute to teach online tactics for human rights campaigners is being set up in the Italian city of Florence.

The first students, starting in the new year, will be drawn from human rights activists around the world — with the aim of arming them with the latest tools for digital dissent.

As the Arab spring showed, protests are as likely to be about individuals using social networking as much as public demonstrations. Street protests have become Tweet protests.

And repressive regimes are as likely to be hunting through Facebook as they are raiding underground meetings.

There is a dangerous, high-stakes, hi-tech game of cat and mouse being played — with protesters needing to balance their secrecy and safety with their need to achieve the maximum public impact.

This training centre, being set up by the European wing of the US-based Robert Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, wants to combine academic study with practical skills and training — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Files aren’t property, says US government

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5 November 2012
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While serial self-publicist Kim Dotcom was re-igniting the submarine cable debate in New Zealand, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation’s (EFF’s) case trying to recover files on behalf of a former Megaupload user Kyle Goodwin took a new twist.

The EFF has been in court trying to gain access to the servers seized by the Feds last year, when the Megaupload saga began. Access to the servers, they have argued, is necessary to help establish Goodwin’s case that his files should be returned.

In a filing that the EFF says should terrify users of any cloud service, the government is arguing that Goodwin’s property rights aren’t sufficient to demand access to the servers.

The government arguments are that Goodwin cannot demonstrate any ownership over the servers, since he merely paid for a service. Moreover, while conceding that Goodwin might have the right to assert his copyright, that is not sufficient to establish that he has an ownership interest in the property that is the subject of his motion — the copies of his data, if any, which remain on Carpathia’s servers — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Baby White Rhino / Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

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5 November 2012
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On 23 October Busch Gardens Tampa Bay welcomed a baby White Rhinoceros. The female Rhino, who has yet to be named, was born at the 26-acre White Rhino habitat on Busch Gardens’ Serengeti Plain. This is the second calf born to mother Kisiri and the seventh for father Tambo. She weighed an estimated 140 pounds at the time of the birth, and will gain approximately four pounds each day until she reaches an adult weight of approximately 3,500 to 4,000 pounds — via ZooBorns

Artificial misting system allows vanished toad to be released back into the wild

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5 November 2012
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In 1996 scientists discovered a new species of dwarf toad: the Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis). Although surviving on only two hectares near the Kihansi Gorge in Tanzania, the toads proved populous: around 17,000 individuals crowded the smallest known habitat of any vertebrate, living happily off the moist micro-habitat created by spray from adjacent waterfalls. Eight years later and the Kihansi spray toad was gone. Disease combined with the construction of a hydroelectric dam ended the toads’ limited, but fecund, reign. However, before the toad population collapsed completely conservationists with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Bronx Zoo were able to establish a captive population of 499 frogs. Now, researchers are releasing a seed population of Kihansi spray toads back into their native habitat, but with one caveat: an artificial “misting system” is the only thing standing between the tiny amphibians and a second extinction — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Pristine WWII German Enigma machine could be yours

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5 November 2012
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A World War II German Enigma cipher machine is on the block at Bonhams, the London auction house, this month.

The 1941 oak model, described as an extremely rare example, is expected to go under the hammer on 14 November for an estimated £40,000-£60,000.

In 2010, a 1939 Enigma fetched £67,250 at auction — that model was furnished with a modern power supply and had some restoration. The Bonhams machine is in working order, completely untouched and unrestored, Bonham’s Laurence Fisher, says — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The Inlander / Deus

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4 November 2012
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This Triumph Bonneville 900 from the west coast of the USA is nicknamed The Inlander. Over the years, it’s been subtly upgraded in all areas, from performance to looks. Most recently it’s been worked on by Deus, which explains the high quality of finish. The owner is a huge motorcycle aficionado, and the Bonneville is his favourite bike and everyday ride — via Bike EXIF

Red Panda / Oklahoma Zoo

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4 November 2012
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On 6 June Oklahoma City Zoo staffers quietly witnessed the eleventh Red Panda birth in the zoo’s history — a female. This is the first baby for Mum Jaya, who came to the zoo at the end of 2011, but the ninth cub for Yoda, the father. The newborn was named KayDee in honour of Oklahoma City Thunder player Kevin Durant — known to fans as KD — whose team won it’s first Western Conference championship on that very same night — via ZooBorns

Octopus / Romain Jerome

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2 November 2012
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The Romain Jerome diver’s watch, the Octopus, is named after the ocean giant that became a powerful symbol in Jules Verne’s famous novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It has a 46mm steel case with bezel notched in stabilised rusted steel from the Titanic, 270m water resistance, automatic mechanical movement, one crown at 9 o’clock to set the watch and a second crown at 3 o’clock for the internal rotating bezel, a hand-engraved Octopus stamped on the case back, hours, minutes and seconds enhanced with blue emission Superluminova — via Perpetuelle

Russia launches internet blacklist to protect the kiddies

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2 November 2012
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The Russian government has opened a blacklist of websites that will be blocked from domestic internet users to avoid them harming themselves with too much information.

The new rules mean that ISPs will automatically block websites that the courts have deemed inappropriate. The law was introduced with the usual caveats about it being to protect children from online predators and to stop drug distribution, but political websites that criticise Tsar President Putin have already been blocked by the courts.

The decision on what sites are to be banned will be enacted by the sinister-sounding Roskomnadzor (AKA the Agency for the Supervision of Information Technology, Communications and Mass Media) and enforced with deep-packet inspection of all internet traffic across the country — which must be reassuring for those using Russian cloud providers — via redwolf.newsvine.com

RAR soldier awarded Victoria Cross for Afghan valour

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1 November 2012
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A Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) soldier who exposed himself to enemy fire to save his comrades during a deadly ambush in Afghanistan has been awarded the Victoria Cross at a ceremony in Canberra.

Corporal Daniel Keighran, who was serving with the 6th Battalion RAR, was recognised for his extreme bravery during the three-and-a-half hour battle which claimed the life of his mate Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney in August 2010.

The medal — Australia’s highest military honour — was presented to Corporal Keighran by Governor-General Quentin Bryce at Government House in Canberra this morning — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Malayan Tapir calf resuscitated / Denver Zoo

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1 November 2012
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A newborn Malayan Tapir calf is alive and doing well thanks to the heroic efforts of two Denver Zoo staff members. On 3 September, Denver Zoo’s female Tapir, Rinny, gave birth inside the Rhino/Tapir building of Toyota Elephant Passage. Staff watched as Rinny unsuccessfully attempted to free the infant from inside its amniotic sac. Assistant Curator of Toyota Elephant Passage Rebecca McCloskey safely separated mother and calf then freed the newborn from the sac for inspection. Together with staff veterinarian Gwen Jankowski, they began providing mouth to snout rescue breaths and manually stimulated the baby for regular breathing and in order to expel liquid from his lungs. After a few minutes of rescue efforts, the infant successfully began to breathe on his own. The scene was captured on video tape inside the zoo’s Toyota Elephant Passage exhibit — via ZooBorns

Thomson accuses Labor of pandering to rednecks

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1 November 2012
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Labor MP-turned-independent Craig Thomson has launched a scathing attack on his former colleagues over the issue of border protection, labelling them hypocrites and accusing them of pandering to the redneck vote.

Mr Thomson’s outburst has been prompted by the Government’s move to excise the mainland from Australia’s migration zone, something Labor campaigned strongly against when the former Howard government tried to do it in 2006.

The move would strip away any legal advantage asylum seekers get by reaching the mainland, compared with those taken directly to an offshore processing centre.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen introduced the legislation yesterday, but Mr Thomson has declared he will vote against it — via redwolf.newsvine.com

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