Hmm. Considering the problem started in 2000 with the release of the book, and Katie Jones (the rightful owner of katie.com) got nowhere in four years, I don't think it's fair to say this "worked itself out."
More likely, the 3 slashdot stories on the topic that spawned the bad review-blasting on amazon.com who-knows-how-many emails to penguin had something to do with it.
That excerpt from the press release denies attempt to buy the domain. It makes no mention or denial of having tried to intimidate and threaten Katie Jones into donating the domain to them to avod "things only getting worse."
Important distinction, that.
Your post proves the effectiveness of denying a related, but different charge in an effort to whitewash an entire event.
No special formatting, fonts, graphics, images . . . sigh. Why pdf? Press release text and my comments below:
In an effort to avoid an association between the book originally titled Katie.com and
the website Katie.com, Plume and the author decide to make this title change.
New York, New York, August 6, 2004... In 2000, Dutton published a hardcover book
called Katie.com by Katie Tarbox, an eye-opening account of one teenager's descent into
the seductive world of the Internet.
Can't resist the plug ("eye opening" indeed.)
After the book was released into the market, it was
brought to Dutton's attention that a website of the same name existed on the Internet.
Given that the original title "girl.com" was changed after they realized it was, at the time, a porn site I find it very hard to believe no one checked "katie.com" before release. I guess that sounds better than "We expected to bully katie.com away from Katie Jones, but all our efforts failed, including bringing out Jabba the Lawyer. Worse, the backlash was costing us ratings on Amazon.com. So we're backing down."
The fact that the book, Katie.com, and the website shared the same name was purely
coincidental.
And very easy to check before release. Like they did with girl.com. Liars.
In an effort to avoid any association between the book and the site, when
Plume issued the book in trade paperback in 2001, it printed on the copyright page that
the author of Katie.com and events described in the book have no connection whatsoever
with the website domain owner Katie Jones or her e-mail address.
Which means they knew this before release. Which means their previous statement that they didn't realize until after release is a lie.
Trena Keating, Editor-in-chief of Plume, said, "We have made every effort to clarify the
fact that Plume's book, Katie.com, and the website, Katie.com, are not in any way
associated with one another.
Yes, now they have finally made "every effort," which includes changing their book name.
In addition, it was erroneously reported recently that Plume
had asked its attorney to attempt to buy the web site Katie.com from domain owner Katie
Jones. This is absolutely not true. Ms. Jones confirms this point in a message currently
posted on her web site.
I didn't hear that they wanted to buy it. I heard they tried to intimidate her into giving it to them. Big difference.
"We are not working in association with author Katie Tarbox or any other individual in
an attempt to assume ownership of the domain name address www.katie.com. Of course,
the personal views of the author are hers and do not represent Plume in any way.
"Going forward, Plume and the author have decided to re-title this book A Girl's Life
Online.
Great. Good job. Late, and chock full of spin and damage control, but good call.
This is an important book about predatory pedophiles on the Internet and how
we can protect our children. We changed the title to keep focus on this issue. The newly
titled book will be released next month.
More revenue opportunity! Everyone wins!
We have always taken this situation very
seriously.
As evidenced by your ignoring it for 4 years?
And we hope that by making this title change, it will demonstrate just how
dedicated Plume is to clarifying this matter."
Oh yearh. It's clear. You're afraid of slashbots! har har har
####
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. member of the internationally renowned Penguin Group.
Penguin Group (USA) is one of the leading U.S. adult and children's trade book publishers,
owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Berkley Books, Dutton, Frederick
Warne, G.P. Putnam's Sons, Grosset & Dunlap, New American Library, Penguin Boo
Well, the story is that the bad reviews were deleted. Granted, many of them were tirades against Katie T, her fat lawyer, and Penguin. But they were negative. And now they're gone.
Amazon, of course, has the right to remove reviews -- it's their site. After all, they're in the business of selling books, not providing a forum for socio-political discourse.
Kind of a shame though. Many of them were funny, especially the one with the lawyer's cellphone number included.
Please tell me how to "step up" the accelerating voltage in a CRT without installing a new transformer or a bank of capacitors. You speak of this "stepping up" as if one might do it accidentally.
Maybe an interesting point (unique in this thread, at least) but:
I mean, who in their right mind is gonna ship a 60 inch plasma TV to india for repair? Gotta be done locally, get the drift....
A CRT you can maybe repair. There are serviceable parts inside. A Plasma or LCD? Not likely possible, and even less likely cost effective (except in rare cases where invertors are in LCDs and designed to be replaced, such as with Apple. No plasma examples I can think of though.)
Just FYI before you start counting on all that income from your plasma repair shop:)
No no -- they allow dildos. Just look at the state legislature. It's only the distribution of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs" that they have a problem with.
My friend just got a job teaching "Integrated Science" to ESL (English as a 2nd Language) students at a high school in Jacksonville, FL.
I asked.
$28/month.
But that's a small price to pay for the protection they provide: no evaluation of your performance, guaranteed raises despite the economy, immunity from firing except in case you commit the most egregious of violations (hit or screw a student, for example.)
Even if you're teachng Science when you've never had Chemistry and you failed Physics intro. Such as in her case.
I'd pay $28/month for that. But no one seems to be trying to unionize electgrical engineers that I know of. Funny, eh?
You have a good point, but please be aware that, even if the power is off, unplugged, and it's sitting 50' feet from the nearest outlet, a monitor or TV can still shock you to death. There are very large high-voltage capacitors in there, and if you don't know how to safely discharge them (and still avoid them!) you will get hurt.
Not having been anywhere the odious "source" of the grandparent poster's claim (thankfully,) I can only provide a
cite to the contrary
CRT's (Cathode Ray Tubes) direct a beam of electrons at a thin layer of phosphor which coats the screen on your monitor. When the electrons strike the phosphor, shadow mask and other screen components, x-rays are produced. The amount and energy of the x-rays depends on the accelerating voltage. The relatively low voltages in CRT's (compared to commercial x-ray machines) means that relatively low quantities of low energy x-rays are produced and modern monitors are so well shielded, that there is no concern of being irradiated over time. Though it is possible for a damaged monitor to emit x-ray radiation, it is unlikely that harmful amounts will be released, and most x-rays would be directed towards the back or sides of the monitor. Any damage to the front of the CRT severe enough to increase x-ray emission would cause the CRT to implode.
Ya know, if you're smart enough to ignore this sort of stuff (or vain enough to try to correct them,)/. can be hilarious for the amazing level of confidence maintained by some while posting the most outrageous, usually unsupported, and sometimes unsupportable nonsense ever uttered.
Thought speed is going to be the bottleneck . . . rarely do I need to put out 100 words in a minute.
Interesting. I guess that depends on the person though. I have a hard time thinking more slowly than 100wpm. I have had to learn to type faster to keep up with my (sometimes transient) thoughts. If I'm not fast enough on the keys, I sometimes lose my train/chain of thought.
Hey -- I just thought of a picture in less than a second. That's what, 1000 wps?:)
Someone changed or deactivated all the bugmenot logins, so here it is. I registered for that asshat site just to read this, and I'm disappointed, so suckit@down.com/suckit or just keep reading:
TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people.
Huh? Permission? Doesn't the government's involvement in consumer electronics stop with making sure that a gadget doesn't jam your neighbor's reception or electrocute you? Since when do the feds get to vote on product designs?
The answer is, since last November, when the FCC voted to require manufacturers to support the "broadcast flag" system by July 1 of next year. This convoluted mechanism aims to stop full-quality copies of digital broadcasts from circulating on the Internet.
The FCC didn't mandate any one anti-file-sharing scheme and instead invited companies to submit their own proposals, which brings us to TiVo's vaguely Soviet predicament. Among the schemes a handful of firms have proposed, only TiVo's would allow tightly controlled online transfers of recorded programs.
For this, the company has drawn the ire of the National Football League and the Motion Picture Association of America, which have asked the FCC to deny TiVo's proposal.
The NFL says that TiVo's Internet-sharing feature will allow people to send game broadcasts to blacked-out viewers in real time (a team's home game can be aired locally only if it sells out beforehand).
"It's a question of pure ability to sell tickets," said Frank Hawkins, the NFL's senior vice president for business affairs. "Buffalo typically sells out September and October, but they've got an open-air stadium. They'll never sell out those December games if they are unable to enforce the blackout rule."
This is an important point: The NFL is not asking the FCC to protect its television business -- never mind that the flag exists only to stop indiscriminate file sharing, not cure every copyright-infringement issue.
No, the NFL is asking for help with a stadium business, one that already benefits from massive government welfare. (A December 2002 Buffalo News story calculated that the taxpayers of Erie County, N.Y., had anted up about $148 million for the Bills and their stadium over the previous decade.)
In other words, the league is asking manufacturers and viewers to further subsidize team owners who are already gorging themselves at the public trough.
There's also the slight problem that the NFL's nightmare -- blacked-out viewers watching a game live on the Internet -- is all but impossible. With almost every broadband connection available today, it would take hours to upload a game. A recipient would be lucky to finish watching a Sunday afternoon game before Monday, and sending a high-definition copy would take most of the week.
Jim Burger, a lawyer for TiVo, fumed about the NFL's complaint: "Maybe their engineers understand how to inflate a football, but I don't think they understand encoded, encrypted MPEG-2," TiVo's tightly secured format.
Whenever full-quality, real-time video on the Internet does become commonplace, I expect to see the NFL capitalizing on it instead of complaining, just as it has profited from such earlier advances as satellite TV.
The MPAA, meanwhile, says that the way TiVo would allow customers to share recordings online with people who may not be friends or family members amounts to indiscriminate redistribution.
The Washington-based group wants TiVo to impose an "affinity requirement," said Fritz Attaway, its executive vice president for government relations.
But how can TiVo tell if the people to whom you've sent a program are really friends and
If his boss was getting his job done and pleasing his employer, who cares how he did it?
Er, me -- one of the many persons who pays his salary?
This is a government worker here, jerking solitaire cards across his desktop 70-fucking-percent of the time. And you're OK with that?
I guess since, you know, market forces and competition and all that such government offices have to put up with would have eliminated this guy and probably his whole department by now if they really wasted all that much time playing solitaire . . .
. . . oh wait. Government offices have no competion.
Or very much evaluation or production assesment at all, for that matter.
Hmm. Maybe the rules should be different for them, then?
Man, I can't believe I'm reading such drivel from otherwise intelligent people. Maybe you missed it -- it's a government office, not a company/business subject to competition and market forces that will kill it in due time if it's too wasteful!
It's government here -- you know, that thing that produces nothing yet can perpetuate itself by just spending enough to get another 20x-too-big budget the next year, no matter how worthless 80% of the employees are?
Proper channels should have been followed. If his employer was unwilling to take action he should have left it alone.
Hey -- "his employer" is us! (If you live in the US, particularly Alabama.) So, if the (possibly also solitaire-playing usless leech) boss of the boss in question chooses to do nothing we should all just suck it up? What the fuck are you saying, that government isn't accountable to the people, and shouldn't be? No protection should be afforded to whistleblowers who expose the wholesale robbery of everyone?
Slashdot Mirror
BS, AC! VW Diesels are sold in MA.
Wow. +5 Fatality.
proj_2501: did you get pwned like that when you saw/replied to that comment before?
I hope not, since I'd think you might want to not go through that humiliation again.
But that's just me.
Krispy Kreme?
Hmm. Considering the problem started in 2000 with the release of the book, and Katie Jones (the rightful owner of katie.com) got nowhere in four years, I don't think it's fair to say this "worked itself out."
More likely, the 3 slashdot stories on the topic that spawned the bad review-blasting on amazon.com who-knows-how-many emails to penguin had something to do with it.
That excerpt from the press release denies attempt to buy the domain. It makes no mention or denial of having tried to intimidate and threaten Katie Jones into donating the domain to them to avod "things only getting worse."
Important distinction, that.
Your post proves the effectiveness of denying a related, but different charge in an effort to whitewash an entire event.
Be careful.
No special formatting, fonts, graphics, images . . . sigh. Why pdf? Press release text and my comments below:
... In 2000, Dutton published a hardcover book
called Katie.com by Katie Tarbox, an eye-opening account of one teenager's descent into
the seductive world of the Internet.
In an effort to avoid an association between the book originally titled Katie.com and the website Katie.com, Plume and the author decide to make this title change. New York, New York, August 6, 2004
Can't resist the plug ("eye opening" indeed.)
After the book was released into the market, it was brought to Dutton's attention that a website of the same name existed on the Internet.
Given that the original title "girl.com" was changed after they realized it was, at the time, a porn site I find it very hard to believe no one checked "katie.com" before release. I guess that sounds better than "We expected to bully katie.com away from Katie Jones, but all our efforts failed, including bringing out Jabba the Lawyer. Worse, the backlash was costing us ratings on Amazon.com. So we're backing down."
The fact that the book, Katie.com, and the website shared the same name was purely coincidental.
And very easy to check before release. Like they did with girl.com. Liars.
In an effort to avoid any association between the book and the site, when Plume issued the book in trade paperback in 2001, it printed on the copyright page that the author of Katie.com and events described in the book have no connection whatsoever with the website domain owner Katie Jones or her e-mail address.
Which means they knew this before release. Which means their previous statement that they didn't realize until after release is a lie.
Trena Keating, Editor-in-chief of Plume, said, "We have made every effort to clarify the fact that Plume's book, Katie.com, and the website, Katie.com, are not in any way associated with one another.
Yes, now they have finally made "every effort," which includes changing their book name.
In addition, it was erroneously reported recently that Plume had asked its attorney to attempt to buy the web site Katie.com from domain owner Katie Jones. This is absolutely not true. Ms. Jones confirms this point in a message currently posted on her web site.
I didn't hear that they wanted to buy it. I heard they tried to intimidate her into giving it to them. Big difference.
"We are not working in association with author Katie Tarbox or any other individual in an attempt to assume ownership of the domain name address www.katie.com. Of course, the personal views of the author are hers and do not represent Plume in any way. "Going forward, Plume and the author have decided to re-title this book A Girl's Life Online.
Great. Good job. Late, and chock full of spin and damage control, but good call.
This is an important book about predatory pedophiles on the Internet and how we can protect our children. We changed the title to keep focus on this issue. The newly titled book will be released next month.
More revenue opportunity! Everyone wins!
We have always taken this situation very seriously.
As evidenced by your ignoring it for 4 years?
And we hope that by making this title change, it will demonstrate just how dedicated Plume is to clarifying this matter."
Oh yearh. It's clear. You're afraid of slashbots! har har har
#### Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. member of the internationally renowned Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) is one of the leading U.S. adult and children's trade book publishers, owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Berkley Books, Dutton, Frederick Warne, G.P. Putnam's Sons, Grosset & Dunlap, New American Library, Penguin Boo
Fury of a 10,000 angry geeks diverted.
I'm very glad to hear this.
So, the only remaining question is: will Chubby Aftab apologize for the threats now, or wait until she's on O'Reilly next week?
Well, the story is that the bad reviews were deleted. Granted, many of them were tirades against Katie T, her fat lawyer, and Penguin. But they were negative. And now they're gone.
Amazon, of course, has the right to remove reviews -- it's their site. After all, they're in the business of selling books, not providing a forum for socio-political discourse.
Kind of a shame though. Many of them were funny, especially the one with the lawyer's cellphone number included.
Please tell me how to "step up" the accelerating voltage in a CRT without installing a new transformer or a bank of capacitors. You speak of this "stepping up" as if one might do it accidentally.
One wouldn't.
Maybe an interesting point (unique in this thread, at least) but:
:)
I mean, who in their right mind is gonna ship a 60 inch plasma TV to india for repair? Gotta be done locally, get the drift....
A CRT you can maybe repair. There are serviceable parts inside. A Plasma or LCD? Not likely possible, and even less likely cost effective (except in rare cases where invertors are in LCDs and designed to be replaced, such as with Apple. No plasma examples I can think of though.)
Just FYI before you start counting on all that income from your plasma repair shop
No no -- they allow dildos. Just look at the state legislature. It's only the distribution of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs" that they have a problem with.
:)
My friend just got a job teaching "Integrated Science" to ESL (English as a 2nd Language) students at a high school in Jacksonville, FL.
I asked.
$28/month.
But that's a small price to pay for the protection they provide: no evaluation of your performance, guaranteed raises despite the economy, immunity from firing except in case you commit the most egregious of violations (hit or screw a student, for example.)
Even if you're teachng Science when you've never had Chemistry and you failed Physics intro. Such as in her case.
I'd pay $28/month for that. But no one seems to be trying to unionize electgrical engineers that I know of. Funny, eh?
You have a good point, but please be aware that, even if the power is off, unplugged, and it's sitting 50' feet from the nearest outlet, a monitor or TV can still shock you to death. There are very large high-voltage capacitors in there, and if you don't know how to safely discharge them (and still avoid them!) you will get hurt.
Unplugging isn't enough when it comes to CRTs!
Not having been anywhere the odious "source" of the grandparent poster's claim (thankfully,) I can only provide a cite to the contrary
/. can be hilarious for the amazing level of confidence maintained by some while posting the most outrageous, usually unsupported, and sometimes unsupportable nonsense ever uttered.
CRT's (Cathode Ray Tubes) direct a beam of electrons at a thin layer of phosphor which coats the screen on your monitor. When the electrons strike the phosphor, shadow mask and other screen components, x-rays are produced. The amount and energy of the x-rays depends on the accelerating voltage. The relatively low voltages in CRT's (compared to commercial x-ray machines) means that relatively low quantities of low energy x-rays are produced and modern monitors are so well shielded, that there is no concern of being irradiated over time. Though it is possible for a damaged monitor to emit x-ray radiation, it is unlikely that harmful amounts will be released, and most x-rays would be directed towards the back or sides of the monitor. Any damage to the front of the CRT severe enough to increase x-ray emission would cause the CRT to implode.
Ya know, if you're smart enough to ignore this sort of stuff (or vain enough to try to correct them,)
If you argue your limitations, they become more permanent.
Thought speed is going to be the bottleneck . . . rarely do I need to put out 100 words in a minute.
:)
Interesting. I guess that depends on the person though. I have a hard time thinking more slowly than 100wpm. I have had to learn to type faster to keep up with my (sometimes transient) thoughts. If I'm not fast enough on the keys, I sometimes lose my train/chain of thought.
Hey -- I just thought of a picture in less than a second. That's what, 1000 wps?
That's right -- ligitimate!
Check out the poll and submit your thoughts to their hi-tech CGI script, and you'll see for yourself:
Thank You For Filling Out This Form
Below is what you submitted to netaddic-data@netaddiction.com on Wednesday, August 4, 2004 at 02:12:49
Ligitimate_Mental_Disorder: No
Wait. I voted "no," so it's not ligitimate, but maybe it's still legitimate. I'm confused.
Aw, screw it -- I'm going to play some Doom3.
Good point. I agree. Doom3 is quite fun. And I've been playing Battlefirld Vietnam and FarCry (and Soldner, and Join Operations.)
But your sig is a lame scam. At least, it would be were it not a 404.
TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people.
Huh? Permission? Doesn't the government's involvement in consumer electronics stop with making sure that a gadget doesn't jam your neighbor's reception or electrocute you? Since when do the feds get to vote on product designs?
The answer is, since last November, when the FCC voted to require manufacturers to support the "broadcast flag" system by July 1 of next year. This convoluted mechanism aims to stop full-quality copies of digital broadcasts from circulating on the Internet.
The FCC didn't mandate any one anti-file-sharing scheme and instead invited companies to submit their own proposals, which brings us to TiVo's vaguely Soviet predicament. Among the schemes a handful of firms have proposed, only TiVo's would allow tightly controlled online transfers of recorded programs.
For this, the company has drawn the ire of the National Football League and the Motion Picture Association of America, which have asked the FCC to deny TiVo's proposal.
The NFL says that TiVo's Internet-sharing feature will allow people to send game broadcasts to blacked-out viewers in real time (a team's home game can be aired locally only if it sells out beforehand).
"It's a question of pure ability to sell tickets," said Frank Hawkins, the NFL's senior vice president for business affairs. "Buffalo typically sells out September and October, but they've got an open-air stadium. They'll never sell out those December games if they are unable to enforce the blackout rule."
This is an important point: The NFL is not asking the FCC to protect its television business -- never mind that the flag exists only to stop indiscriminate file sharing, not cure every copyright-infringement issue.
No, the NFL is asking for help with a stadium business, one that already benefits from massive government welfare. (A December 2002 Buffalo News story calculated that the taxpayers of Erie County, N.Y., had anted up about $148 million for the Bills and their stadium over the previous decade.)
In other words, the league is asking manufacturers and viewers to further subsidize team owners who are already gorging themselves at the public trough.
There's also the slight problem that the NFL's nightmare -- blacked-out viewers watching a game live on the Internet -- is all but impossible. With almost every broadband connection available today, it would take hours to upload a game. A recipient would be lucky to finish watching a Sunday afternoon game before Monday, and sending a high-definition copy would take most of the week.
Jim Burger, a lawyer for TiVo, fumed about the NFL's complaint: "Maybe their engineers understand how to inflate a football, but I don't think they understand encoded, encrypted MPEG-2," TiVo's tightly secured format.
Whenever full-quality, real-time video on the Internet does become commonplace, I expect to see the NFL capitalizing on it instead of complaining, just as it has profited from such earlier advances as satellite TV.
The MPAA, meanwhile, says that the way TiVo would allow customers to share recordings online with people who may not be friends or family members amounts to indiscriminate redistribution.
The Washington-based group wants TiVo to impose an "affinity requirement," said Fritz Attaway, its executive vice president for government relations.
But how can TiVo tell if the people to whom you've sent a program are really friends and
I didn't say government was useless, just that it produces nothing, which is true. It's a necessary evil.
And yes, I vote, but I can't recall the last time mid-management at the Dept. of Transportation were up for re-election.
In business, market forces such as competition take care of the inefficient in a nice, Darwinian way.
We've yet to devise a way to afford such culling forces to government.
Thirdly, no one likes a snitch.
When it comes to my otherwise paying the salary of a leech, I love a snitch.
Now if there were only a way to make government offices and not just corporations act so fiscally responsibly.
If his boss was getting his job done and pleasing his employer, who cares how he did it?
Er, me -- one of the many persons who pays his salary?
This is a government worker here, jerking solitaire cards across his desktop 70-fucking-percent of the time. And you're OK with that?
I guess since, you know, market forces and competition and all that such government offices have to put up with would have eliminated this guy and probably his whole department by now if they really wasted all that much time playing solitaire . . .
. . . oh wait. Government offices have no competion.
Or very much evaluation or production assesment at all, for that matter.
Hmm. Maybe the rules should be different for them, then?
Man, I can't believe I'm reading such drivel from otherwise intelligent people. Maybe you missed it -- it's a government office, not a company/business subject to competition and market forces that will kill it in due time if it's too wasteful!
It's government here -- you know, that thing that produces nothing yet can perpetuate itself by just spending enough to get another 20x-too-big budget the next year, no matter how worthless 80% of the employees are?
Proper channels should have been followed. If his employer was unwilling to take action he should have left it alone.
Hey -- "his employer" is us! (If you live in the US, particularly Alabama.) So, if the (possibly also solitaire-playing usless leech) boss of the boss in question chooses to do nothing we should all just suck it up? What the fuck are you saying, that government isn't accountable to the people, and shouldn't be? No protection should be afforded to whistleblowers who expose the wholesale robbery of everyone?
Wow. Just wow.