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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

US doctors are to interview 12 patients with a view to performing the first ever transplant of a human face.

The Cleveland Clinic will choose between seven women and five men to find the person most suited for the experimental procedure, which is a radical and controversial solution to extreme facial scarring or disfigurement.

Having practiced the procedure on bodies donated for medical research, the Cleveland Clinic team believe they have a 50% chance of success. The procedure will not live up to science-fiction predictions and give the recipient the appearance of the donor; the underlying bone structure is the deciding factor in the final appearance. The new face will end up resembling neither the donor nor recipient.

Surgeons in several other countries have announced being ready to perform this procedure in the past. However, the risk and non life-threatening nature of disfigurement have meant that gaining approval for the groundbreaking surgery has been difficult. Like many other transplant operations, the recipient would be required to take drugs to prevent tissue rejection for the remainder of their life. These drugs can have side effects and carry their own risks involving the patient’s immune system.

Thursday, September 1, 2005

With victims of Hurricane Katrina moved to shelters and remote locations, their relatives and friends in other parts of the world have turned to the web to try and establish contact and confirm their health. Many families living in the path of Katrina have even been split up as they are rescued and now desperately need to contact each other.

Several web sites have started forums for posting information on missing people. The forums also allow individuals and families in the path of the hurricane who are safe post their information, where they are now located and how their family should contact them.

The American Red Cross is keeping records of all persons they treat and assist, but those records are not available either by phone or online. They have issued a press release titled AMERICAN RED CROSS URGENT FAMILY ALERT. Quoting, in part:

The Red Cross does not have information on the well being of any individuals.

Our phone lines are being overwhelmed with calls, and we appreciate the desire to know how people fared during the storm.

Please do not contact any Red Cross media representatives with welfare inquiries.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Three days after the Internet release of the free content 3D short Elephants Dream (see Wikinews coverage), we exchanged e-mails with Ton Roosendaal about the reaction to the film, open source filmmaking, and the changes to Blender that resulted from the production. Ton Roosendaal is the lead developer of the Blender 3D rendering and modelling software that was used for the movie. He is also the chairman of the Blender Foundation, a non-profit organization which was formed in support of the software and projects like Elephants Dream.

How much money did the Blender Foundation spend on producing the movie? Has the money been fully recouped by DVD orders and donations?

We still have to finish the final bookkeeping for this project. It has been executed in co-production with the Netherlands Media Art Institute, and we each had our own internal budgeting for the project. When you exclude expenses of pre-production and producer personnel, the total budget was about 120,000 €, of which we covered half. Our contribution was roughly covered half by the DVD sales, and half by European Union support (http://www.uni-verse.org consortium).

One of the most common criticisms of CGI films is focus on technology over content. For instance, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within flopped with audiences, in spite of being an undisputed technical milestone. I’ve seen many reviews that criticized the plot of “Elephants Dream” as too bizarre or confusing. In retrospect, are you happy with the story development process?

Haha, I knew the story and plot would get a mixed acclaim. There’s a couple of reasons I’d like to mention for it.

First of all; the criticism resembles how people witness Blender itself, too. Many people expect that Free Software is an easy accessible mass audience product. We get a lot of complaints by non-artists that they can’t get into the software easily, whilst the complexity of commercial products like Maya or Houdini is perceived as a confirmation of its “quality”. Apparently an Open Movie created similar expectations with the audience.

Luckily we also got many positive reviews of the artistic result of the movie. It is quite abstract, but definitely has many layers of information, inspiring many of the viewers to see relevant real life messages hidden here.

For this project we’ve teamed up with the Netherlands Media Art Institute, internationally renowned as a resource for video art. So for Elephants Dream, we’ve had the luxury to challenge ourselves to create real independent artistic content as well. The artists had a lot of freedom from the start; they were responsible for the concept, story and creative development of the entire movie. This has resulted in a lot of quite personal choices, based on what the artists liked to do themselves. I really cherish such an approach, it has resulted in a very motivated team working crazy hours the last months to get it all realized.

But, most importantly; the main target of our project was not only to create a 3D movie short, but to experiment with ways to improve the efficiency and quality of open source development. On this aspect only, this project was just a huge success, and the main reason for our sponsors (the DVD pre-sale) to support it. I know they might have liked a cartoonish funny movie with furry animals better, but for that you get already pretty well served by the bigger 3D animation studios. 🙂

I’m the first to admit that – looking back especially – certain aspects worked out quite weakly; there’s loose ends and questionable decisions, especially in story development and continuity. That’s just the risk of doing experiments, and nothing I regret really. The five artists from our user community who were invited to make the movie were young people with no professional background in filmmaking. Their personal incentive to participate in this project was also to learn from it, and to create a good portfolio for their future career. I’ve witnessed them grow in competence in the past year enormously, something I’m incredibly proud of.

On the technical level, the only major criticism I’ve seen of “Elephants Dream” is the character animation, especially in the opening scene — many reviewers felt that the movements seemed a bit unnatural. Do you agree with these criticisms? If so, what do you think can be done to improve on that level?

Yeah, the challenge the artists set themselves – to use quite realistic personages – is also something that easily works against you. In many animation movies they introduce characters in the beginning in a way you get used to their specific characteristic movements, so you accept a certain level of non-realism easily. (Check the weird walk cycles in The Incredibles for example). Another aspect is that we’ve started work on the first scenes, and ended with the last scenes. I can clearly see the animation quality increase, and that whilst the ending scenes were done in much less time due to time constraints.

We also didn’t schedule to do 9.5 minutes of animation either…. Originally it was more like 6. But, it’s always easier to look back to define the right decisions, eh? 🙂

I’m very happy with the reviews we got so far; luckily the movie was perceived as a professional quality product, and reviewed based on comparisons with what the big studios come up with. Even when we couldn’t satisfy all these quality demands, it has luckily not been branded as a pathetic presumptuous attempt by amateurs!

Do you think there is hope for a full-length open movie project in the near future? Would the Blender Foundation be interested in such a project, or do you intend to continue focusing mainly on shorts?

I’d like to wait a little while with defining what a next project would look like. Given the constraints of “organizing projects to improve open source development”, we might have not much choice either. It would probably mean to work with a new team each time, so most likely be based on shorts only. On the other hand, there’s also clear signals that this approach works well, and creates excitement and involvement of a lot of people, also from producers and sponsors. That might enable us to set up a next project based on larger targets. For a full-length feature film however, we should involve a sufficient amount of experienced film makers as well, and/or invite the first team to participate again. That would put a lot of pressure on the required budget…. You can’t do that based on a 1000 DVD pre-sale target. Would more be like 20,000 or so…. 🙂

How did the process of making the movie feed back into the development of Blender? Are there major technical changes that were made only or primarily because of the film?

Already during the pre-production phase the artists have defined the key targets for Blender development. This then was coordinated with the online development community too. I’ve done the most crucial (re-)development mostly myself, though. Especially on the character animation tools, on the rendering pipeline and compositing tools.

It is especially the latter I’m most satisfied with. In 3D movie production the compositing stage creates a giant content bottleneck. By transparently integrating this in our render-pipeline, a very efficient workflow has been achieved. And, not to forget, Blender now also offers the first production-level open source compositor on the market!

The current summary you can find in our work-in-progress release notes.

What are the key technical features in Blender you want to add or improve for future movie projects?

Depends on what the movie is about! There’s always hundreds of features you can work on. However, we’ll have to work on that anyway, movie project or not. There’s a lot of professionals using Blender now, and they can’t wait for the Blender Foundation to do movies! Look at this studio for example: http://www.plumiferos.com/

I read that at least one proprietary software package, Reaktor, was used for the sound effects. Is this because no equivalent free software solution exists yet? Will future projects have a “free software only” policy?

We’ve limited the “Open Source tools” requirement to our own Studio Orange only. That was what we could keep in control at least, and I can tell you it was not always easy even… 🙂

For sound and music we’ve decided from the beginning to seek an external sponsor. We have chosen to work with the best quality studio and composer we could find, preferably using open source, but not as a prerequisite.

My own competence is solely within the CG [computer graphics, Ed.] side of movie making. When it comes to music editing, or video encoding and DVD authoring, I could only decide to choose to work with external parties with proven competences in that area. I have to be practical in projects like this, especially to ensure it will be realized.

Hopefully, now we’ve got so much attention world wide, we can involve more non-CG open source next time, too. I will definitely strive for the maximum here, but it will fully depend on the amount of professional support we can get.

Blender itself was originally closed source freeware, until it was “liberated” through a fundraising campaign. If you could choose one proprietary application to “set free” where such a goal could be realistically achieved, which one would it be?

Well, the “realistically achieved” demand makes it quite difficult. 🙂 Looking back at similar cases, like Mozilla and OpenOffice.org, it was always very circumstantial. It just happens sometimes, you can’t organize something like this to happen in advance. The only common denominator is “a company in troubles”… so, who’s in trouble now?

What is your personal favorite computer-animated full-length film?

Uuuh… that differs every week! Probably Ice Age (the first one). Mostly because they didn’t overdo showcasing 3D technology so much, but created truly adorable characters and great funny gags.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Since winning the reality television series America’s Next Top Model in December 2006, CariDee English, a small-town girl from Fargo, North Dakota, was plucked from relative obscurity to be the new look for CoverGirl Cosmetics, the newest fresh face on the cover of Seventeen, and affiliated with the largest modeling agency in the world, Elite Model Management.

However, she feels her greatest accomplishment is being the spokeswoman for the National Psoriasis Foundation, in which she is a motivational speaker and gives encouragement to psoriasis sufferers. CariDee has even lobbied in Congress for the passage of a bill which would ask the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Institute of Medicine to increase spending on finding a cure for psoriasis. You can read more about her role with the National Psoriasis Foundation here.

Wikinews reporter Mike Halterman sat down and talked with CariDee earlier in the week to discuss her own issues with psoriasis, how she has helped other sufferers in her role as spokeswoman for the Foundation, as well as what it’s like to be a new model in New York City and her thoughts on how the fashion industry operates today.

This is the second in a series of articles with America’s Next Top Model contestants. Articles will be published sporadically.

Friday, December 8, 2017

On Thursday, a federal judge heard the first of several lawsuits filed against the U.S. government over the Bear’s Ears National Monument after United States President Donald Trump’s proposed reductions in the protections formerly given to the Bear’s Ears National Monument went into effect last Friday.

On Wednesday, the Utah Dine Bikeyah, a Navajo nonprofit, posted the fourth and latest of several lawsuits against the Trump Administration over plans announced Monday that would split the Bears Ears National Monument into several smaller parcels and greatly reduce its overall size. The Conservation Lands Foundation, Archaeology Southwest, Friends of Cedar Mesa, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Access Fund, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation are all co-plaintiffs in the suit.

“President Trump has literally dismembered our sacred Bars Ears monument that five Tribes have worked tirelessly for many years to protect in order to preserve our culture and way of life,” reads a statement by Mary Benally of Utah Dine Bikeyah.

On Monday, shortly after the announcement, representatives of the five Native American tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-tribal Coalition, the Hopi, Pueblo of Zuni, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Ute Indian Tribe announced plans to sue the administration of sitting United States President Donald Trump over the shrinking of protections on a Utah monument area that is home to Native American ruins and artifacts. Ten environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, National Resources Defense Council, and Wilderness Society are also filing lawsuits regarding another monument area, also in Utah. President Trump publicly announced his plans to redesignate both sites on Monday.

In a visit to Utah on Monday, President Trump announced plans to break up the Bears Ears National Monument into three smaller areas similarly reduce the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The coalition claims that the Antiquities Act of 1906 forbids the president from doing this. “The President was plainly aware that he lacked the authority to revoke a monument and is thus transparently attempting to evade that strict limitation by purporting to reduce it but, as described herein, the President’s action must be viewed as a revocation, particularly with respect to all objects not included in the two ‘new’ monuments,” the official filing argues.

In his announcement, President Trump said, “The families and communities of Utah know and love this land the best, and you know the best how to take care of your land. You know how to protect it. And you know best how to conserve this land for many, many generations to come,” and called the original designation government overreach.

According to documents acquired by The Washington Post, a uranium consortium called Energy Fuels Resources had engaged a professional lobbying firm to convince the Trump Administration to reduce the size of the monument so that it could access the uranium deposits inside. Uranium is the raw material used as fuel in nuclear power plants, and the only uranium mill in the United States is just outside Bears Ears. Secretary of the Interior Zinke says this was not a factor, however: “This is not about energy,” he said on Tuesday. “There is no mine within Bears Ears.”

Navajo Nation President Russel Bageye called the decision “an open invitation for mining companies to come in and start mining uranium and other minerals in the area.” Many uranium mines have been opened on or near Navajo land. Most were never cleaned properly and the land and water remain heavily contaminated.

There is some legal precedent for a president shrinking a national monument—Woodrow Wilson shrank the Mount Olympus National Monument during the early 20th century, but no court cases ever rejected or endorsed the decision.

Although the specifics were not confirmed until Monday, the fact that the administration had plans to reduce protections on Bears Ears and Escalante in some way has been public knowledge, and the Bears Ears Inter-tribal Coalition had already been planning to sue. In a statement issued Thursday, Nov. 30, President of the Navajo Nation Russel Beyaye said, “At the very least, President Trump should have consulted with the original local governments of the Bears Ears region: our five Indian Nations. Instead, our many requests for consultation were ignored. An action to diminish the Bears Ears National Monument in any way will be an action against the Navajo Nation and the Navajo people who have worked so tirelessly to protect these lands.”

“The tribes view this as an affront to themselves and their own self determination,” said attorney for the Native American Rights Fund Natalie Landreth earlier this month in the Salt Lake Tribune. “All of us, all five tribes will be suing jointly the day he makes an announcement.”

Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were declared protected areas by then-Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and both are home to artifacts and archeological sites. Bears Ears had a problem with looters before President Obama declared it a national monument. The changes will split the monuments up into many smaller parcels and reduce the overall protected area by more than a million acres collectively. According to some White House documents, protected status will be “confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects identified” as in need of protection.

The Antiquities Act gives the sitting U.S. President the authority to set aside spaces already within federal territory that he feels are in danger without requiring approval from Congress, for example, by prohibiting industrial development and motor vehicle access. Over the past century, legal scholars and a U.S. attorney general have claimed that the Act does not permit a sitting president to reverse a previous president’s decision.

Several Republicans, including Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, support the president’s decision: “I believe his proclamation, following Secretary [of the Interior] Zinke’s fair, thorough, and inclusive review, will represent a balanced solution and a win for everyone on all sides of this issue.”

Other groups, including the clothing retailer Patagonia have also announced plans to sue. Patagonia, which sells outdoor clothing and equipment, argues that by reducing the size of areas where customers would use the company’s products, the government is denying Patagonia business. However, the Inter-tribal Coalition’s lawsuit was the first one filed.

“The tribes feel it was important to file first, to be ahead of the line, to make it very clear that this is not just a conservation issue,” said attorney Natalie Landreth of the Native American Rights Fund, which is representing the coalition. “To them, it is a tribal sovereignty issue.”

This comes days after President Trump was condemned by the National Congress of Native Americans for his use of the term “Pocahontas” during ceremony meant to honor Navajo Code Talkers, Native American men who developed and used a Navajo language-based military code for the U.S. military forces during World War II. “Pocahontas,” is President Trump’s nickname for Democrat Elizabeth Warren, a reference to Warren’s claims that her family has Native American ancestry. The ceremony was held in front of a picture of former president Andrew Jackson, who presided over the Trail of Tears in the early 1800s, in which thousands of Cherokee perished in a forced migration west.

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Friday, October 14, 2011

The C programming language creator and co-developer of the Unix operating system Dennis Ritchie died at home on October 8 after an extended illness, at the age of 70. Former colleague Rob Pike first publicly announced the death, which Alcatel-Lucent then confirmed.

Ritchie, born in Bronxville, New York on September 9, 1941, joined Bell Labs in 1967. There, with Ken Thompson, he helped develop Unix, an operating system on which are based many modern systems such as Linux and Mac OS X. Unix provided the infrastructure that led the creation of the Internet. Between 1969 and 1973 he developed the C, one of the most used programming languages, that influenced many languages like C++, Java, and PHP. After Unix was rewritten, C was key to its portability. In 2007 he retired from his post as Bell Labs’ head of systems software research.

Ritchie and Thompson were awarded the Turing Award in 1983, the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 1990, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 1998, and the Japan Prize in 2011.