So you really think that anything could work if everyone just did whatever they thought was best for themselves 100% of the time? Do you really think that any society could function that way? I don't believe that "the majority should rule" every time (note: you don't live in a straight democracy, either, and in neither of our systems does the 'majority', numerically or otherwise rule), because governments do allow for minority positions and for considerations of minority groups.
What I don't understand is why you think this is some kind of "force" arrangement. If you don't like it, leave this society and go somewhere else. Go live on a mountaintop in blessed isolation free from having to depend on other people -- for anything. See how long you last. No one is an island; we're all peninsulae -- interdependent, communitarian, and essentially coequal for the most part. That's why social contracts of all types exist. If you don't like the social contract, go live somewhere where there's a different one.
I don't know why you seem to think that "the common good" is a coercive arrangement. I like what I get from my government. I'm quite happy with roads, schools (yes, even public schools -- I'm a 100% product of public schools and proud of it), power grids, welfare, and socialized healthcare. Hell, to me, that alone makes up for any other aspect. If it weren't for OHIP, I wouldn't be here. In fact, if everyone were as ruggedly individualistic as you seem to think we should all be, I'd be dead.
Can't blame me for liking what's on the left half of that equation under those circumstances, can you?
And your analogies are flawed: Theft is NOT a social contract. In fact, we have social contracts (ie. "laws") saying that you can't do that without having to be subjected to due process in the justice system. Would you rather we didn't have laws and just had individualized vigilante justice instead? --shudder-- And if I didn't like what the rest of my group of friends was going to eat for dinner (ie. Mexican food), I'd stay out of the trip.
I agree 100%. Whatever happened to pure research? It seems as though tertiary education these days is all about applying learning to make the quickest and biggest buck possible. Unless your scholarship/discovery has some sort of immediately-apparent commercial potential, most universities don't seem to be too interested in it (unless, of course, they have one of those "work for hire" type IP clauses where all your IP you develop there belongs to them).
Which is probably why most "innovations" these days don't seem to be anything radically new. They seem to be "better, faster, smaller, cheaper, smarter" versions of the same old stuff. Without research for the sake of research, we wouldn't have 99% of the "older" technology we take for granted.
Hmm, I seem to be repeating myself, to the tune of "Professionalism to excess is a bad thing." Whatever happened to having fun, anyway? Since when did our culture start glorifying the workaholic as the ultimate hero-figure anyway? I thought university was supposed to be for learning, playing, getting radicalized, pushing the boundaries, and other such similar things. University is short. Working life is long...oh, boy, is it long. I think people should enjoy it while they can. Anyway, starting my own business in a "business incubator dorm" doesn't sound like my idea of a good time -- or a good education.
I guarantee you get a lot more return for your money from the government (which isn't hell-bent on taking off a maximal ROI from every taxpayer dollar it collects) than you do from a corporation, which always wants its 15%+ profit.
Or don't you like roads, electrical grids, and all that other good infrastructure and all those wonderful services? Me, personally, I like paying taxes.
Coincidentally enough, I don't think people hate corporations for the same reasons they hate governments. It's not about the money corporations take away, it's the exploitation without accountability (or transparency) -- unless you are a shareholder, you cannot vote a corrupt CEO out of office. I am acutely aware of this paradigm, because there are US politicians who somehow directly affect my life and whom I would dearly love to vote out of office, and I'm not a US citizen.
While I agree that Nintendo's price-fixing is a non-issue as issues go, it's still worth a weather eye, much as many other things are. I'd hate to be serious and uptight all the time.
Congratulations, sir! I think you just hit it! The two key issues here are loyalty and trust. An employer who gives you the leeway to be comfortable at work (right now I'm wearing jeans, a turtleneck, and a zip-up sweatshirt-jacket, and my usual nice Doc Martens), and gives you the leeway to take a few minutes off and read Slashdot (or whatever) is an employer you're more likely to stay with out of loyalty. Likewise, a workplace where employees don't feel that Big Brother is breathing down their necks every minute of every day is a good workplace to be in.
Employers who bitch about employees' not trusting them or lacking loyalty to the company have to realize it works both ways, and one of the best ways to put loyalty and trust (which is also tied up in that antiquated concept respect) into practice is to act on it, instead of just talking about it.
...unless, of course, it's a phrasal verb. I don't care how allegedly grammatically correct it is, "There are some things up with which I will not put," (thank you Winston Churchill) is still clunky English, and probably not grammatically correct in any case, since "put," "put up" and "put up with" are three different verbs, two of which are phrasal.
I mean... Put up with or shut up with, already!
And seriously, the precursor was probably just a bad snip.
That's true, but it's always nice to get into a field on the ground floor. See, one of the problems with professionalism (in the sense of a field's "going professional" and creating, for instance, professional managers) is that it raises the bar for entry, sometimes far too high.
For instance, I'm pretty sure it was a lot easier to get started in business 100 years or so ago -- you had a trade, and you did it, and "managing" wasn't something that you did as a career, it was something that you did to enable yourself to do all that other stuff you wanted to do (say, in Walt Disney's case, making cartoons).
Now, with so many fields professionalizing so rapidly, it's very hard to get into them at all unless you've got the appropriate professional credentials and/or (usually and) experience. (Oh, yeah, having friends in high places helps too.) Woe betide you if you don't have these things, because you will suddenly find yourself having to be twice as good as the existing competition to even get into the field, which can be tough when you're competing against people with 20 years' experience.
And sometimes having your field taken over by august sages and avocationists is not a good thing, either. To use an example I'm most familiar with, look at how dynamic, prolific and vibrant SF publishing was in the 1960s and 1970s. Now that it's been professionalized and commoditized so much, all that dynamism, exuberance (and not necessarily even youthful exuberance), and prolificness (prolixity? although not in the strictest literary sense) has gone out, and it's damn near impossible for a newcomer (of any age) to get published.
All fields need newcomers, beginners, and dabblers, so professionalism is not necessarily a good thing 100% of the time, especially since the trend lately in technology (and other fields) has been to refine, as opposed to innovate. Where are the innovators going to come from, if we don't encourage people to start doing something? You'd be surprised what novel approaches the "beginner mind" can come up with. Ask me about it sometime...
Yes, stop buying music. But don't just stop buying music. Make sure that everyone, from the manager of the store where you buy the music, to the distributor who sells to the store, to the record label (and its parent company, if any), to your Senators and Congresscritters, know that you've stopped buying music, and why.
Silent boycotts are interpreted as sales slumps. Loud boycotts are interpreted as political action, and usually paid attention to. After all, things which negatively affect business' bottom lines get their attention...
Aiigh! You hurt the Interrobang when you say things like that.
On the other hand, probably you're not in the position of needing the Perfectionist's Text Editor that shuts up and leaves you the f*ck alone, unlike Word, which gets in your face all the time, and suffers from the persistent and troublesome delusion that if you indicate you want to do X it does Y anyway, because it knows
that's what you really mean;
that it has a better grasp on grammar and spelling than you (when it's wrong 3/5 of the time or more);
that you really want all those auto-nag and autocorrect things that you turned off, turned back on suddenly, and when it will inconvenience you the most.
I oughtta know; I use it all day long at work.
I mean, for stuff like document design and layout, if you don't have a high-end tool like FrameMaker, you will get inferior results using Word -- for only three times the effort -- as you would with WP. (Those drag-and-drop multiply-adjustable margins make my day.) Then again, I'm what you might call really familiar with the program, having started using WP in 1988 (4.1 for the Amiga, ahh, sweet nostalgia!).
I'm also a (straight-leaning) bi female with a marginal interest in computer games. (I don't play a lot of the shooters because my hand-eye coordination sucks. Perhaps another related factor?)
"And btw the idea lately that games need to be made more female friendly p!$$es me off... if I wanted to do girly things, I'd go bake and put on make up or some such crap."
You know, you don't have to put down women just to be accepted in this community. Personally, I think it's incredibly unfair to make such a generalization.
So by your definition here, you can be female without being "a woman." Ok, I buy that, I never much liked that concept of "womanliness," either, but femaleness (on my terms) suits me ok. I don't think that the original comment was meant to "put down women," for acceptance here or not (although goodness knows there's enough [unconscious] sexism here [post title: Women/Male]).
However if someone's idea is that to be female, we must all bake, wear makeup, and do other similar things (the domesticity maven brigade), I'm going to put that attitude down completely, without degenerating into ad hominem attacks on anyone.
Incidentally, my favourite computer game ever was "Below the Root" for the C-64. I also like "Black and White" and "I Have No Mouth..." but when it comes to shooter games, I'm a voyeur -- I like to watch far more than I like to play. Wonder what that says about me?;)
Actually, considering that I have a friend (Jeff Stan, film critic for "Dark Cinema" magazine and scriptwriter) who's in kinda tight with Norrington's circles, I can say with confidence that if anyone could pull this off, it would be Steven Norrington.
On the other hand, I sat through an anime version of Metropolis and came out almost in tears it was so bad. So it works both ways.
No, I am a geek. I just don't like to blow things up. The last time I tried that, I singed my hair (long, then). Now that I'm older and wiser, I stay away from dangerous things, mostly out of a vested interest in keeping my hide intact. Wondering why you all wouldn't do the same. Immortality complexes?
Composition [Class III Fireball - Do not handle without proper training and protection. Consult your handbook.]
Oh no! Fireballs have HMIS information?! I already have to find the rest of those 10 000 Material Safety Data Sheets for work; where oh where am I going to find contact information for "Fireball Manufacturers"?
I once saw what I thought was a satellite or a high-flying aircraft passing through the night sky roughly from south to north -- until it made a 90-degree turn almost directly overhead and accelerated so fast it was out of sight in about 1/2 second. (If you know how slow high-flying aircraft and satellites appear from the ground, you'll know that to cover 50% of the sky in almost no time at all is fast.) I didn't hear anything either.
When I mentioned it to my dad, who's a pilot and can identify almost every man-made flying thing in existence from minimal cues, he said he had no idea what it was either. My guess is an experimental unmanned aircraft, but it seems unusual that someone would be testing such a thing over London, Ontario.
I mean, it's amusing as hell in a sick sort of way, but why would someone really want to blow up their own private pond?
The only reasons I can think of are:
because he's bored and can't think of something, anything better to do (watching paint dry springs immediately to mind)
because he stocked the pond and doesn't have the patience to fish for real (throw the sodium into the water, wait, then cruise out in your dory with a net and scoop the fish off the remaining water), or
because he can, which doesn't really answer the "why" question.
What is it with most geeks and things that go kaboom anyway? Do you guys all want to be Marvin the Martian or something?
I mean... Most authors can't even handle their own proofreading. Who says they create their own links?
Actually, most authors do handle their own proofreading. Editors (whose time is usually spent doing far more administration than "galley slavery") love writers who submit clean copy. It saves them time, and it makes the author in question look like a real pro who actually knows what they're doing, instead of yet another no-neck yahoo who thinks they can write.
Likewise, a lot ofauthorscan and do create their own links. I should think that Declan McCullagh, with his tech-related tearsheets as thick as the average encyclopedia, would be better-suited to defending his ability to write a simple hyperlink (and to opine on the deliberateness -- or not -- of the DeCSS link) than I, but I'm here.
Also, low level process note: For any web-based print medium for which I've written (several, by now), the author generally includes his or her own hyperlinks, if not actual markup. Editorial commentary and/or low-level drudgery only come into it if the links don't work for some reason, in which case the author usually gets an e-mail from the editor advising him or her to change the link and resubmit the revised version. YMMV, especially if the link leads to actionable content...
The "Clever Hans" Effect
on
Ig Nobels Awarded
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Actually, Clever Hans, the alleged "counting horse," picked up on his trainer's body language to know when to stop tapping his hoof. A lot of people who don't know much about animals don't realize that animals are very good at reading/communicating body and gestural language, which is probably where the confusion comes in.
The TV example from the parent post is yet another example of the "Clever Hans Effect," similar to the/. effect in that it causes something to come to a halt, grinding or not...;)
The problem is with publishers who have standard contracts for this sort of thing, and are not interested in what the author wants.
Writers may sell serial rights, reprint rights, or first-refusal rights (usually piecemeal or by the whole as specified in the standard contract), but most publishing venues do not and have not bought copyrights for 50 years or so. (Note to writers: Never, ever sell your copyright, unless you really want someone to 0wN you forever -- especially since you can sell reprint rights until the cows come home, if your work is bankable enough. I seem to remember Stephen King telling an anecdote about a story which netted him some hundreds of dollars initially eventually bringing in some tens of thousands due to reprints etc.)
we need to pay politicians and bureaucrats to tell us what to do in cyberspace... the one place where the 1st Amendment should reign supreme...
Hmm, last I checked, I don't have a 1st Amendment in my Constitution, and "cyberspace," being, as nearly as I can define it, not really a "place" at all so much as a metaphor for a place, doesn't de facto or de jure fall under completely US jurisdiction (no matter what you all might think cough Sklyarov cough), that's an extremely Americocentric way of putting it.
Now free speech, on the other hand, freedom of the press, perhaps, and certainly multilateralism and international cooperation, I'll go for.
In any case, we don't need stodgy academics, consolidationist free-market wet-dream media moguls, or anyone else turning the internet into television with fewer moving parts (there's a reason I don't watch television!) -- nor in preaching the scripture that the freedom and openness of the internet are an illusion that should be dispelled as soon as possible (to what end?).
As with all agendists of every stripe, I have to ask what this guy's ulterior motives are. Can some kind Slashdotter with some time on their hands find out who's (which media company, dare I venture?) paying him?
Well, if you're cranky, like I am, you might not want to sell your catalogue (lease, rent out, first North American Reprint Rights, but not sell outright!), so willing the entire body of work into the public domain seems to me to be an equitable solution for everyone.
Certainly would eliminate the need for (and the effect of) Boswells...
First of all, I'm a writer. Secondly, I like to eat (my reason for ongoing membership in the Great International Tech Writer Conspiracy). Thirdly, I approve of limited term copyright in certain circumstances. (There are a lot of instances where copyright comes in handy; there are also a lot where copyright is just no damn good, but that's another story.)
However, I don't think that I, my heirs and/or assigns, and/or my legal-entity estate, and/or the corporation which bought up my catalogue before or after my demise (particularly this latter) should be able to profit from my works forever, or even for three quarters of a century after I'm dead. There's no reason for it.
There are a lot of good reasons against it, though. First of all, it isn't exactly fair for other people (and/or corporations) to get fat off my legacy (let them make their own art instead of just collecting royalty cheques on my work in perpetuity). Secondly, a lot of art (books, movies, short stories, etc.) is getting "lost" in ever-extending copyright boondoggles. Many early films are decaying in their canisters, unshown and unrestored, because the copyright holder is long dead, but the work hasn't passed into the public domain. Same with thousands and thousands of what would be "mid-list" books written since 1910. Thirdly, the commonweal (that is, society at large) deserves (and, at least in the US, is Constitutionally assigned) the right to use my artistic work (after a set period) to enrich itself, which I support.
I won't need those hypothetical royalties, anyway. I'll be dead. Next question for the lawyerly types out there: Upon her demise, is it possible for an author to will her works into the public domain?
Slashdot Mirror
Even if they are made of junk components, I'd hate to see the local little monsters smash those jack-o-lanterns.
Interrobang, wincing in agony
So you really think that anything could work if everyone just did whatever they thought was best for themselves 100% of the time? Do you really think that any society could function that way? I don't believe that "the majority should rule" every time (note: you don't live in a straight democracy, either, and in neither of our systems does the 'majority', numerically or otherwise rule), because governments do allow for minority positions and for considerations of minority groups.
What I don't understand is why you think this is some kind of "force" arrangement. If you don't like it, leave this society and go somewhere else. Go live on a mountaintop in blessed isolation free from having to depend on other people -- for anything. See how long you last. No one is an island; we're all peninsulae -- interdependent, communitarian, and essentially coequal for the most part. That's why social contracts of all types exist. If you don't like the social contract, go live somewhere where there's a different one.
I don't know why you seem to think that "the common good" is a coercive arrangement. I like what I get from my government. I'm quite happy with roads, schools (yes, even public schools -- I'm a 100% product of public schools and proud of it), power grids, welfare, and socialized healthcare. Hell, to me, that alone makes up for any other aspect. If it weren't for OHIP, I wouldn't be here. In fact, if everyone were as ruggedly individualistic as you seem to think we should all be, I'd be dead.
Can't blame me for liking what's on the left half of that equation under those circumstances, can you?
And your analogies are flawed: Theft is NOT a social contract. In fact, we have social contracts (ie. "laws") saying that you can't do that without having to be subjected to due process in the justice system. Would you rather we didn't have laws and just had individualized vigilante justice instead? --shudder-- And if I didn't like what the rest of my group of friends was going to eat for dinner (ie. Mexican food), I'd stay out of the trip.
I suggest you go thou and do likewise.
I agree 100%. Whatever happened to pure research? It seems as though tertiary education these days is all about applying learning to make the quickest and biggest buck possible. Unless your scholarship/discovery has some sort of immediately-apparent commercial potential, most universities don't seem to be too interested in it (unless, of course, they have one of those "work for hire" type IP clauses where all your IP you develop there belongs to them).
Which is probably why most "innovations" these days don't seem to be anything radically new. They seem to be "better, faster, smaller, cheaper, smarter" versions of the same old stuff. Without research for the sake of research, we wouldn't have 99% of the "older" technology we take for granted.
Hmm, I seem to be repeating myself, to the tune of "Professionalism to excess is a bad thing." Whatever happened to having fun, anyway? Since when did our culture start glorifying the workaholic as the ultimate hero-figure anyway? I thought university was supposed to be for learning, playing, getting radicalized, pushing the boundaries, and other such similar things. University is short. Working life is long...oh, boy, is it long. I think people should enjoy it while they can. Anyway, starting my own business in a "business incubator dorm" doesn't sound like my idea of a good time -- or a good education.
I guarantee you get a lot more return for your money from the government (which isn't hell-bent on taking off a maximal ROI from every taxpayer dollar it collects) than you do from a corporation, which always wants its 15%+ profit.
Or don't you like roads, electrical grids, and all that other good infrastructure and all those wonderful services? Me, personally, I like paying taxes.
Coincidentally enough, I don't think people hate corporations for the same reasons they hate governments. It's not about the money corporations take away, it's the exploitation without accountability (or transparency) -- unless you are a shareholder, you cannot vote a corrupt CEO out of office. I am acutely aware of this paradigm, because there are US politicians who somehow directly affect my life and whom I would dearly love to vote out of office, and I'm not a US citizen.
While I agree that Nintendo's price-fixing is a non-issue as issues go, it's still worth a weather eye, much as many other things are. I'd hate to be serious and uptight all the time.
What happens if you get a power surge? Rips your dick off and faxes it to Canada?
Yeah, it'll arrive on my fax machine...MWA-ha-ha-ha-ha! (I have such fun with these little surprises, don't you know...)
Congratulations, sir! I think you just hit it! The two key issues here are loyalty and trust. An employer who gives you the leeway to be comfortable at work (right now I'm wearing jeans, a turtleneck, and a zip-up sweatshirt-jacket, and my usual nice Doc Martens), and gives you the leeway to take a few minutes off and read Slashdot (or whatever) is an employer you're more likely to stay with out of loyalty. Likewise, a workplace where employees don't feel that Big Brother is breathing down their necks every minute of every day is a good workplace to be in.
Employers who bitch about employees' not trusting them or lacking loyalty to the company have to realize it works both ways, and one of the best ways to put loyalty and trust (which is also tied up in that antiquated concept respect) into practice is to act on it, instead of just talking about it.
what's an Interrobang?!
Ha ha. Very funny. Nice shot. I was almost tempted to give a straight reply.
Interrobang
?!
...unless, of course, it's a phrasal verb. I don't care how allegedly grammatically correct it is, "There are some things up with which I will not put," (thank you Winston Churchill) is still clunky English, and probably not grammatically correct in any case, since "put," "put up" and "put up with" are three different verbs, two of which are phrasal.
I mean... Put up with or shut up with, already!
And seriously, the precursor was probably just a bad snip.
That's true, but it's always nice to get into a field on the ground floor. See, one of the problems with professionalism (in the sense of a field's "going professional" and creating, for instance, professional managers) is that it raises the bar for entry, sometimes far too high.
For instance, I'm pretty sure it was a lot easier to get started in business 100 years or so ago -- you had a trade, and you did it, and "managing" wasn't something that you did as a career, it was something that you did to enable yourself to do all that other stuff you wanted to do (say, in Walt Disney's case, making cartoons).
Now, with so many fields professionalizing so rapidly, it's very hard to get into them at all unless you've got the appropriate professional credentials and/or (usually and) experience. (Oh, yeah, having friends in high places helps too.) Woe betide you if you don't have these things, because you will suddenly find yourself having to be twice as good as the existing competition to even get into the field, which can be tough when you're competing against people with 20 years' experience.
And sometimes having your field taken over by august sages and avocationists is not a good thing, either. To use an example I'm most familiar with, look at how dynamic, prolific and vibrant SF publishing was in the 1960s and 1970s. Now that it's been professionalized and commoditized so much, all that dynamism, exuberance (and not necessarily even youthful exuberance), and prolificness (prolixity? although not in the strictest literary sense) has gone out, and it's damn near impossible for a newcomer (of any age) to get published.
All fields need newcomers, beginners, and dabblers, so professionalism is not necessarily a good thing 100% of the time, especially since the trend lately in technology (and other fields) has been to refine, as opposed to innovate. Where are the innovators going to come from, if we don't encourage people to start doing something? You'd be surprised what novel approaches the "beginner mind" can come up with. Ask me about it sometime...
USA P(for Population) AT RIOT, which is where they might be if someone doesn't ease off the pressure valve soon. :)
:)
Civil disobedience, anyone?
Pssst...I can also arrange defections to Canada, eh?
Yes, stop buying music. But don't just stop buying music. Make sure that everyone, from the manager of the store where you buy the music, to the distributor who sells to the store, to the record label (and its parent company, if any), to your Senators and Congresscritters, know that you've stopped buying music, and why.
Silent boycotts are interpreted as sales slumps. Loud boycotts are interpreted as political action, and usually paid attention to. After all, things which negatively affect business' bottom lines get their attention...
On the other hand, probably you're not in the position of needing the Perfectionist's Text Editor that shuts up and leaves you the f*ck alone, unlike Word, which gets in your face all the time, and suffers from the persistent and troublesome delusion that if you indicate you want to do X it does Y anyway, because it knows
that's what you really mean;
that it has a better grasp on grammar and spelling than you (when it's wrong 3/5 of the time or more);
that you really want all those auto-nag and autocorrect things that you turned off, turned back on suddenly, and when it will inconvenience you the most.
I oughtta know; I use it all day long at work.
I mean, for stuff like document design and layout, if you don't have a high-end tool like FrameMaker, you will get inferior results using Word -- for only three times the effort -- as you would with WP. (Those drag-and-drop multiply-adjustable margins make my day.) Then again, I'm what you might call really familiar with the program, having started using WP in 1988 (4.1 for the Amiga, ahh, sweet nostalgia!).
I'm also a (straight-leaning) bi female with a marginal interest in computer games. (I don't play a lot of the shooters because my hand-eye coordination sucks. Perhaps another related factor?)
;)
"And btw the idea lately that games need to be made more female friendly p!$$es me off... if I wanted to do girly things, I'd go bake and put on make up or some such crap."
You know, you don't have to put down women just to be accepted in this community. Personally, I think it's incredibly unfair to make such a generalization.
So by your definition here, you can be female without being "a woman." Ok, I buy that, I never much liked that concept of "womanliness," either, but femaleness (on my terms) suits me ok. I don't think that the original comment was meant to "put down women," for acceptance here or not (although goodness knows there's enough [unconscious] sexism here [post title: Women/Male]).
However if someone's idea is that to be female, we must all bake, wear makeup, and do other similar things (the domesticity maven brigade), I'm going to put that attitude down completely, without degenerating into ad hominem attacks on anyone.
Incidentally, my favourite computer game ever was "Below the Root" for the C-64. I also like "Black and White" and "I Have No Mouth..." but when it comes to shooter games, I'm a voyeur -- I like to watch far more than I like to play. Wonder what that says about me?
If he can't do it, no one can!
Actually, considering that I have a friend (Jeff Stan, film critic for "Dark Cinema" magazine and scriptwriter) who's in kinda tight with Norrington's circles, I can say with confidence that if anyone could pull this off, it would be Steven Norrington.
On the other hand, I sat through an anime version of Metropolis and came out almost in tears it was so bad. So it works both ways.
Colour me ambivalent.
No, I am a geek. I just don't like to blow things up. The last time I tried that, I singed my hair (long, then). Now that I'm older and wiser, I stay away from dangerous things, mostly out of a vested interest in keeping my hide intact. Wondering why you all wouldn't do the same. Immortality complexes?
Composition [Class III Fireball - Do not handle without proper training and protection. Consult your handbook.]
Oh no! Fireballs have HMIS information?! I already have to find the rest of those 10 000 Material Safety Data Sheets for work; where oh where am I going to find contact information for "Fireball Manufacturers"?
As if my job weren't tough enough...
Interrobang, Conscript MSDS Updater
I once saw what I thought was a satellite or a high-flying aircraft passing through the night sky roughly from south to north -- until it made a 90-degree turn almost directly overhead and accelerated so fast it was out of sight in about 1/2 second. (If you know how slow high-flying aircraft and satellites appear from the ground, you'll know that to cover 50% of the sky in almost no time at all is fast.) I didn't hear anything either.
When I mentioned it to my dad, who's a pilot and can identify almost every man-made flying thing in existence from minimal cues, he said he had no idea what it was either. My guess is an experimental unmanned aircraft, but it seems unusual that someone would be testing such a thing over London, Ontario.
The only reasons I can think of are:
because he's bored and can't think of something, anything better to do (watching paint dry springs immediately to mind)
because he stocked the pond and doesn't have the patience to fish for real (throw the sodium into the water, wait, then cruise out in your dory with a net and scoop the fish off the remaining water), or
because he can, which doesn't really answer the "why" question.
What is it with most geeks and things that go kaboom anyway? Do you guys all want to be Marvin the Martian or something?
I mean... Most authors can't even handle their own proofreading. Who says they create their own links?
Actually, most authors do handle their own proofreading. Editors (whose time is usually spent doing far more administration than "galley slavery") love writers who submit clean copy. It saves them time, and it makes the author in question look like a real pro who actually knows what they're doing, instead of yet another no-neck yahoo who thinks they can write.
Likewise, a lot of authors can and do create their own links. I should think that Declan McCullagh, with his tech-related tearsheets as thick as the average encyclopedia, would be better-suited to defending his ability to write a simple hyperlink (and to opine on the deliberateness -- or not -- of the DeCSS link) than I, but I'm here.
Also, low level process note: For any web-based print medium for which I've written (several, by now), the author generally includes his or her own hyperlinks, if not actual markup. Editorial commentary and/or low-level drudgery only come into it if the links don't work for some reason, in which case the author usually gets an e-mail from the editor advising him or her to change the link and resubmit the revised version. YMMV, especially if the link leads to actionable content...
Actually, Clever Hans, the alleged "counting horse," picked up on his trainer's body language to know when to stop tapping his hoof. A lot of people who don't know much about animals don't realize that animals are very good at reading/communicating body and gestural language, which is probably where the confusion comes in.
/. effect in that it causes something to come to a halt, grinding or not... ;)
The TV example from the parent post is yet another example of the "Clever Hans Effect," similar to the
Feel better knowing that after 10 years?
Heh, and here I thought my trouble with the Internet lately was just this ^%$@* work computer.
grumble stupid Windoze mutter Excel interface curse BSOD growl tech writer grumpy imprecate need antidote snarl
The problem is with publishers who have standard contracts for this sort of thing, and are not interested in what the author wants.
Writers may sell serial rights, reprint rights, or first-refusal rights (usually piecemeal or by the whole as specified in the standard contract), but most publishing venues do not and have not bought copyrights for 50 years or so. (Note to writers: Never, ever sell your copyright, unless you really want someone to 0wN you forever -- especially since you can sell reprint rights until the cows come home, if your work is bankable enough. I seem to remember Stephen King telling an anecdote about a story which netted him some hundreds of dollars initially eventually bringing in some tens of thousands due to reprints etc.)
we need to pay politicians and bureaucrats to tell us what to do in cyberspace... the one place where the 1st Amendment should reign supreme...
Hmm, last I checked, I don't have a 1st Amendment in my Constitution, and "cyberspace," being, as nearly as I can define it, not really a "place" at all so much as a metaphor for a place, doesn't de facto or de jure fall under completely US jurisdiction (no matter what you all might think cough Sklyarov cough), that's an extremely Americocentric way of putting it.
Now free speech, on the other hand, freedom of the press, perhaps, and certainly multilateralism and international cooperation, I'll go for.
In any case, we don't need stodgy academics, consolidationist free-market wet-dream media moguls, or anyone else turning the internet into television with fewer moving parts (there's a reason I don't watch television!) -- nor in preaching the scripture that the freedom and openness of the internet are an illusion that should be dispelled as soon as possible (to what end?).
As with all agendists of every stripe, I have to ask what this guy's ulterior motives are. Can some kind Slashdotter with some time on their hands find out who's (which media company, dare I venture?) paying him?
Well, if you're cranky, like I am, you might not want to sell your catalogue (lease, rent out, first North American Reprint Rights, but not sell outright!), so willing the entire body of work into the public domain seems to me to be an equitable solution for everyone.
Certainly would eliminate the need for (and the effect of) Boswells...
First of all, I'm a writer. Secondly, I like to eat (my reason for ongoing membership in the Great International Tech Writer Conspiracy). Thirdly, I approve of limited term copyright in certain circumstances. (There are a lot of instances where copyright comes in handy; there are also a lot where copyright is just no damn good, but that's another story.)
However, I don't think that I, my heirs and/or assigns, and/or my legal-entity estate, and/or the corporation which bought up my catalogue before or after my demise (particularly this latter) should be able to profit from my works forever, or even for three quarters of a century after I'm dead. There's no reason for it.
There are a lot of good reasons against it, though. First of all, it isn't exactly fair for other people (and/or corporations) to get fat off my legacy (let them make their own art instead of just collecting royalty cheques on my work in perpetuity). Secondly, a lot of art (books, movies, short stories, etc.) is getting "lost" in ever-extending copyright boondoggles. Many early films are decaying in their canisters, unshown and unrestored, because the copyright holder is long dead, but the work hasn't passed into the public domain. Same with thousands and thousands of what would be "mid-list" books written since 1910. Thirdly, the commonweal (that is, society at large) deserves (and, at least in the US, is Constitutionally assigned) the right to use my artistic work (after a set period) to enrich itself, which I support.
I won't need those hypothetical royalties, anyway. I'll be dead. Next question for the lawyerly types out there: Upon her demise, is it possible for an author to will her works into the public domain?