A teenage girl who claimed 56 stars were tattooed on her on her face as she slept when she asked for three has admitted she was awake the whole time – and lied because her father was “furious”.

How stupid!

Both the girl & the Tattooist ~ OK, he was probably used to dealing with adults who thought about what they wanted long & hard, were comitted to their vision of themselves with Tattooes and had got beyond the ‘what will X say’. So he did the work on an 18 year old with only verbal OK. Now he will get written consent in future ~ good for him! Harsh lesson though.

As for her?

Well, she has what she wanted. Now she has to live with it. I feel sorry for her, youglings do stupid stuff often and rarely is it quite as obvious to all and sundry exactly what you did. Most things can be hidden.

Not your face.

Transported by flying iMonkies through the aether

US biased but very interesting explanation of the various sets of information on Influenza A/H1N1 aka Swine Flu AKA Swine-Avian-Human Flu.

Here is a snippet (from the beginning):

In this case, there are a lot of things that really need explaining:

• what a pandemic is (based on spread, not severity)
• why there are school closures with only a handful of cases
• why this appears to be no worse than seasonal flu – yet isn’t seasonal flu and has to be treated differently
• why testing isn’t instantly available (needs sophisticated PH lab testing)
• why not everyone needs tamiflu even though tamiflu “works” (mild flu does not need treatment, regardless of seasonal or swine designation)

It has lots of graphs and comparisons and explanations that I am not going to try to explain ~ go read! However:

The whole point of what CDC / WHO / DH are trying to do is reduce the total number likely to fall ill and mitigate the severity of the flu in the population as a whole. The sooner schools are closed, workers persuaded to telecommute the fewer people get it and the less dangerous it is for the population as a whole.

The real ideal is for the interventions to be so successful that everyone thinks it was a storm in a tea-cup as it isn’t widespread or severe.

Get it wrong however and we have the Spanish Flu of 1918. Don’t Want.

NHS: Swine flu Q&A ~ this also has side bar links to WHO / CDC / DH / etc.

So: Be sensible. Take reasonable precautions. And above all ~

Don’t Panic

Right. The stuff below may or may not now be accurate.

Specifically  this reddit post has someone [Phelyx] commenting that he knows one of the other artists (accused of using Jon’s work) and his work has been stolen. It also links to the Logo factory which presents the other side:
~ Nobody is being sued (according to the lawyers)
~ They had been trying to contact Jon to discuss the situation
~ Some of the disputed images have been on Stock Art for >10 years while Logopond (where Jon put them) has only been in business since Jun-06.
~ Jon has previously ponied up for a similar ‘request’ made previously.

And finally, at the end of the article, is a twitter from Jon pretty much apologising for everything.

So ~ Don’t believe everything on Twitter.

Original Post: 05 April 2009

OK, this may be an odd place to put info about a Twitter Campaign but… I know there are artists out there and I don’t know any info other than that I am provided with.

Jon Engle, an illustrator, is being sued by StockArt for copyright infringement on work he claims is his own and they claim he stole from artists on their site.

His blog post is here: JonEngle.com/accused

Not only has he been sent a bill for ‘illegal’ use of (his own) images but they are contacting clients of his to say he is under investigation for copyright infringement which has led him to be banned from some other work sites and caused quite a bit of problems for him with clients!

You may have seen some of his work without knowing it as he has worked on some TV programmes etc.

OK, I confess to knowing only 1 side of this story, but the info sucks.

Moral: If you have work that you want to retain the rights to you must prove you created it, and when. Don’t assume everyone will play nice or fair. If you can’t prove you had it before they did, you may be in trouble!

His Twitter: http://twitter.com/relevantstudio
His website portfolio: http://www.relevantstudio.com/
Other examples of his work: http://www.behance.net/Relevant

(cross-posted a couple of places)

http://ping.fm/hAM4n

“The very act of putting the Sympathy Pin on, is a self acknowledgment that you are not feeling “normal” or “okay” and that this is quite reasonable.

You need to allow yourself time to grieve.

In Western societies we do not enjoy strong and structured community support, as we go about our often isolate lives. The Sympathy Pin allows others to recognize where you are in your life at this time and that you need them to bear with you.”

This is quite interesting idea. Not sure how well this would work if others don’t recognise what the pin means. I came across it in the context of the Australian Bushfires, and the need to recognise those who are grieving.

Links:
CFA Statewide Current Incident Summary (Volunteer fire-fighters)
Search Twitter for #bushfire
Twitter feed of #bushfire tweets
Google Mapping BushFires
Tweeter BenBalbo who created the next site:
BushFire Housing: Needed or Offered
Pictures of Bush Fires
Fire Updates
Engineering academic says bushfire bunkers could save lives

(Crossposted to Livejournal)