A few days later than I wanted to put this together, but so it goes.

• Finding WWII aircraft crash sites in the Himalayas, with recovery to follow. [1]
• What makes a perfect president: Media and politics in creating the presidency as an American myth [1]
• The suit from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill Case may get closure before the Supreme Court
• South Korea is sending their first astronaut into space in April. So, that means the national dish, kimchi, goes to space, too.
• New Yorker talks about six words

1. Disclosure

The New York Times reports on New York City's Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting is proposing new rules governing photography that would, "require any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to get a city permit and insurance."

The permits are free and the stated intent is aimed more at professionals and intended to ensure they have insurance. However, it isn't hard to see a group of Flickr photographers crossing the "professional" threshold and getting stopped and cited because they lack a permit. Thankfully, I didn't notice anything about "enhancing security in a post 9/11 world."

Closer in, and more pleasantly, N&O photographer Takaaki Iwabu has a gallery, Drive-by America, photographs taken while driving.

John W. Backus dies. From the New York Times obit:

Fortran, short for Formula Translator, was very similar to the algebraic formulas that scientists and engineers used in their daily work. With some training, they were no longer dependent on a programming priesthood to translate their science and engineering problems into a language a computer would understand.