haddadadad

YouTube has begun the great undertaking of righting copywrongs. Videos folks post to the website using music without the artists’ permission are being muted. The visual content remains, and a notice under the video states the reason for the muting.

example:

A bunch of users are gonna be pissed if this keeps up. GooTube has been tracking copyright music; now they are doing something about it. How is this going to affect YouTube usage? We can only look at so many videos of puppies and kittens. People discover artists using YouTube and probably purchase tunes they would not have if they didn’t use the previewing services of the internet. Yes, people who buy music still exist.

Are cover bands going to be affected? They use copyrighted music, but they are performing it. What about clips of movies and tv shows — are they going to get blacked out? Live performances of the bands playing their own songs? This will be confusing.

mashable
ontd
atlanta business chronicle

Today Flight 1549 of US Airways crashed into the Hudson River (no fatalities yay). Janis Krums, visiting form Florida, was on a ferry and overheard people saying “There’s a plane in the river!” Thinking they were joking, he turned to see a freaking plane in the river with people piling onto the wings and into life rafts. He posted a picture to his Twitter account only to be interviewed 20 minutes later by MSNBC. Nuts.

thx Laura.

A boy born in Colorado Springs had surgery two and a half months ago to remove a tumor in his brain. His mother’s doctor found fluid in his brain during an ultrasound, and scheduled an emergency c-section to take care of it at 41 weeks (that’s about 9 months anyway). Sam Esquibel was born looking fine and dandy. After confirming the tumor with an MRI, they opened up his head at 3 days old to take care of what appeared to be a tumor. You know, the regular-type mass of cells that shouldn’t be where it is. They found this little guy inside:

The tumor had a this fully formed foot and thigh, another foot, and a hand. Keep in mind these are super small, as they were removed from a small tumor in a baby’s head. It’s been two and a half months, and Sam is almost totally healed at this point. He has some physical therapy to be scheduled for his neck and head, but besides that, he’s okay!

reported by the Denver Post
AP release
wtf nature

Rainbow Reef of the Swimways> family has these KICKASS sharks you can get. They also have puffer fish, sunfish, turtles, and a large mouth bass. My favorite picture is for the puffer fish:

I want a big pool, and I want these toys in it. you can learn more about the shark here

Back in 2004, a sperm whale had been found beached and dying on the shores of Taiwan. It died by the time help arrived, so they were moving the body to the Shi-Tsao Natural Preserve to be examined at the order of Professor Wang Chien-ping after the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan said it would not accept the body.

The body had other plans, choosing to go out with a bang. Literally. The gases within the decomposing giant had built up enough to pop its belly, spilling the stomach and other random organs into the streets of Tainan. Entrails!

From what they could tell, the whale was a 50 ton bull, 17 meters long (~55 feet). National Geographic is playing a documentary this weekend on the event. I could not find a listing for it online, but some person in the wtf_nature community said it is so it must be true.

bbc article on original explosion

christ i need to perform.