Blog
November 2008
I crack myself up
I haven’t been posting because I’ve been dying of some strange virus. I’m probably better now, which is a relief, because dying isn’t any fun. On the other hand, strange ideas occur when you’re feverish. Check out the 404 page to a new project I’m working on:
Page Not Found
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,“ said Frodo.
“So do I,“ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such pages. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the pages that are given to us.“
Like Bilbo when he puts on the One Ring, it appears the page you wanted could not be found. Buck up, Frodo. There are other pages for you to find; it’s only a bad link. It’s not like we’re asking you to march into Mordor with one companion and a guide who wants to kill you and steal your treasure. Good grief. We aren’t like Gandalf.
Look around: there are links for you to follow, and they all lead somewhere much less perilous than the fires of Mt. Doom.
Jousting and other Ren Fair type things
I spent part of the day, at least, as the Texas Renaissance Fair or Festival or whatever they’re calling it. It was amusing. Apparently it was a Greek or Roman themed weekend, although the number of people in togas were sadly outnumbered by the number of people in Star Wars costumes I saw. I am a little confused by the presence of Star Wars costumes at a Ren Fair, but hey, if someone wants to slap on Stormtroooper armor and march around in 75 degree heat, go for it.
The shopping was interesting. I was actually planning to buy gifts for a couple people that I know go for typical fair fare: candles, wood work, leather work, pottery, etc. I didn’t see anything I couldn’t find cheaper online, though, and the one time I was in a shop contemplating a purchase, the shopkeeper came over to tell me about how this was the biggest festival in the whole world, or maybe she said the U.S. I don’t remember. At any rate, it’s bigger than California’s fair. Take that, California! And it rakes in millions of dollars. And then she proceeded to tell me that she only ever sold the item I was looking at at this fair, no where else. Well, that explained the price on the item, clearly. Not only was it priced exorbitantly because it was at the fair, but she must have tacked on more for being exclusive to this fair. You’d think shopkeepers would save their gloating until after the purchase was made. I declined to buy and went off looking for somewhere else to spend my money.
I did eventually find a gift for the last person on earth I ever expected to find a fair-style gift for. And it was even reasonably priced, or at least didn’t make me wince when I paid for it. I guess this means I’ve officially begun Christmas shopping.
But possibly the most amusing part of the day was the joust. It was… hilarious, actually.
See, my family lived in England for a while when my brothers and I were just at that age where fair style things were the best ever. And England can put on fair style things like no one else can, and they have lots of them going on. At real castles. With real dungeons. And we used to watch the jousting exhibitions, because I liked the horses and my brothers liked the fighting.
You can see where I might have had some high expectations, right?
Yeaaaaaaah. Yeah. Erm. It was, you know, moderately entertaining, in the way staged entertainment can be.
And there was no question it was staged. I’m all for safety and don’t even mind choreography, because fairs should be fun and not Kiddy’s First Lessson in Spinal Cord Injuries, but when one of the riders shifts his lance out of the way three strides before impact and turns the shield so the other rider can oh-so-carefully aim and smack it… there’s such a thing as being too obvious.
Even better were the falls. The jouster gets hit… canters for two strides in a perfectly balanced position, tosses his lance away, and does a flying dismount. Even the ten year old kid in front of me was pestering his father, wanting to know why the rider had jumped off his horse instead of continuing the joust.
The warm-up games were more impressive, actually. One of them involved the jousters trying to catch an upheld ring on their lance, like this:
Then they graduated to throwing the rings up in the air. Hey, I was impressed.
Sorry, that’s the only picture I have—apparently, I have awful timing when it comes to taking action shots, and my camera was too low on battery to try taking video and abstracting photos later.
The one good thing about the jousts was that they were relatively short; they weren’t running the horses into the ground for peoples’ amusement, which was especially nice since they do several shows a day (maybe… I think one rider, at least, changed horses between shows, but I can’t be sure since they were all covered in curtain thingies).
All in all, not a bad way to spend a sunny, fair weather day.
And on the way out, I passed some random lady riding around on a Friesian. The horse gets major props for practically falling asleep while a family tried to get up the courage to pat him. The horse was a whole lot less intimated by the fair than people were by him.
Why is it…
That I can never just vacuum?
I started out vacuuming, but as I passed the bookshelves I noticed they were a little, um, neglected. They got dusted—and not just dusted. Books were moved. They were dusted.
Then I went back to vacuuming, and got as far as the sideboard. That poor thing had turned into a giant junk drawer. It still is a giant junk drawer, but it’s now the most organized junk drawer in the universe.
Of course, I had to do something with all the papers I’d been stacking on it “to file later.“ My filing cabinet is now also organized within an inch of its life, which was no small feat considering that when I moved, I tossed every paper I owned into the cabinet. They hadn’t been sorted out since.
Back to vacuuming… until I realized I’d moved a kitchen chair right under the ceiling fan, which was ideal for, yup, dusting the ceiling fan. And if the ceiling fan was being dusted, the bedroom fan might as well get dusted, right?
Back to vacuuming… and on it went. For hours. The apartment is the cleanest it’s been since I moved in. My cats are now freaked out—Onyx because I found about 6,000 toys for her to play with, and Pookie because I only ever clean this much when I’m going on a trip.
I suppose it was inevitable. The past couple weeks have been so busy I just couldn’t keep up with everything, so I was going to have to clean this weekend anyway before the clutter drove me insane. Now I can do something fun. Hm. Now I have to come up with something fun to do.
Obama needs to give his speechwriter a raise, and other election thoughts
I have held my tongue about politics all year, so now that results are coming in, I’m going to spout off.
So we all know where I stand, let me put it out there for the record: I’m an Indepublicrat. I’m liberal on some major issues, conservative on others, conflicted on others, and sometimes change my mind. I’m no party robot. Both major presidential candidates have views I support. Both scared me just a little with their platform. I am not going to say how I voted. I am neither despondent nor ecstatic when it comes to a Democrat being in office. Outside all party lines, however, I am very pleased the the U.S. has elected an African American. It was time and more than time.
But at nearly 1 a.m., I am sitting here waiting for results from Alaska. Say what? Who cares about Alaska? It has three electoral votes and always votes Republican. Neither candidate ever goes up there, not even the Republican candidate in a “thanks for your support” kind of way. In fact, the TV station just announced Alaska for McCain, and the reporter couldn’t figure out what to say about it. I paraphrase: “Alaska goes to McCain. That’s, uh, three votes. It doesn’t really matter much.“
No, if you’re watching Alaska, you’re watching it to see what happens in the Stevens vs. Begich campaign for Senate. Stevens, as you should know, was recently found guilty on seven counts of ethics violations. And he is, right now, winning his race at 49-46%. How does that happen? I think it’s difficult to comprehend the loyalty Alaska has for Stevens. I also think that, to an extent, Stevens is getting votes by Republicans in an attempt to secure the possibility of a run-off election. If Republicans do not vote for Stevens, and the Democrat secures the seat, that seat is lost. If they vote for Stevens—even if they think he should step down—and he ends up being forced to step down (a certainty, unless he wins his appeal), the Republicans have a chance to keep that seat in the resulting run-off election. So votes for Stevens may not be votes for Stevens, per se. They may be strategic votes aimed at maintaining party control of the Senate seat.
You know what would be fascinating? If Stevens wins the elections, is forced to resign, and then Palin runs against Begich. The media likes to talk about Palin in 2012, and one of the biggest complaints about Palin is her lack of experience. This scenario would give Palin that experience. I would not be surprised to see that scenario play out. And although I believe Begich has been one of the strongest threats to Stevens in recent years, I am not sure that he could pull off a run-off election against Palin—any other candidate, and Begich would have it wrapped up, but Palin will have the aura of the VP nomination behind her, as well as a state that heavily trends Republican and is going to be very, very nervous about the Democratic sweep. I mean, right now Begich is losing to a man who was found guilty of seven felonies, whether because support for Stevens is just that strong, or Republicans are just that intent on maintaining the seat for their party.
It’s fascinating.
On a related note: Obama needs to give his speech writer a raise. I haven’t paid much attention to the speeches during this whole campaign process, but I did listen to his acceptance speech. His speech writer is very, very good. I’m excited about this. I hated Bush’s speech writer. Their (ab)use of rhetoric grated on me like fingers on a chalkboard. Obama’s speechwriter, however, plays rhetoric like a finely tuned instrument. This, people, is wordsmithing. Whether you like what he’s saying or not, realize that this stuff is crafted within an inch of its life.
Of course, it helps that Obama has much better delivery and stage presence than Bush. But still—well done, speech writer.
Copyright Part I: You need to register your copyright
Ever since I discovered my copyright had been infringed, I have been carefully researching and documenting everything I can to better understand copyright law and my rights under it. When I spoke with a lawyer last week, one of the things he suggested was sharing what I have learned with other people. I think this is an excellent idea. I am still pursuing certain actions as a result of the infringement of my text, but nothing I say in these posts will reflect on my situation in particular. This is good, general knowledge that I wish I’d known three years ago—knowledge I think every blogger should know.
Note also: Standard disclaimers apply: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. There may be errors in my understanding or interpretation of the law. I’ve linked to resources at the U.S. Copyright Office to show where my conclusions are grounded; in most cases, these links are to sections of the copyright law so you can do your own research. You should take any specific questions to an attorney.
Part I: You need to register your copyright. Not “should.“ You need to register your copyright.
It’s true you don’t have to register your copyright in order to establish your rights (Section 102). You don’t even have to put a copyright notice on your work for the copyright to apply (Circular Three: “Copyright Notice”).
However, if you want to pursue your case in court, you must register your copyright. I’ll say it again: copyright registration is a prerequisite to court action (Sections 411 and 412).
All copyright cases fall under the jurisdiction of the federal copyright law (Section 301), and, although this is conjecture, I believe mandatory registration establishes the federal jurisdiction. This means you can’t take someone to small claims court over a copyright case, by the way. If you’re pursuing legal action, you’re pursuing it as a federal case.
Now, the interesting thing about all of this is that you do not have to register your copyright before your rights are infringed. You only have to register it before you pursue legal action. You can discover your rights were infringed, register the copyright, and then pursue action.
However, if you do this, you can only sue for actual damages and you cannot sue for attorney’s fees (Sections 412, 504 and 505).
On the other hand, if your copyright was registered prior to infringement*, you can sue for statutory damages of up to $30,000 ($150,000 for willful infringement) and attorney’s fees (Sections 412, 504 and 505).
The difference between having to pay attorney’s fees at a federal court level and being able to sue for them as part of the judgment will, I believe, for most average bloggers determine whether or not we can afford to take someone to court. In addition, I believe you’ll be more likely to find an attorney who will take the case on a contingency basis if you can ask for statutory damages rather than having to prove actual damages. Statutory damages may exceed actual damages, especially in cases where “actual” damages may be hard to find but you can prove willful infringement.
*There is one caveat to having to register prior to infringement. You have three months from the time you fix your work in tangible form to register your copyright. If your work is infringed during these three months, you can still pursue legal action and sue for statutory damages and attorney’s fees. However, if you discover an infringement during these three months, you must register within the next month in order to sue for statutory damages and attorney’s fees (412).
Confused? I think this is how it works:
Say I write a post March 1. I have until June 1 (three months) to register my copyright. If I discover in September that in April someone infringed upon my rights, I can still sue for statutory damages because I am protected by the three-month clause.
However, say I write the post on March 1 and discover on April 1 that someone has infringed my text. Now I have to register the copyright by May 1 (30 days) in order to retain my right to sue for statutory damages. The thirty-day period will expire before the three-month period. Remember, though, that this thirty-day period applies to the discovery of infringement. If I don’t discover the infringement until later in the year, but register the copyright within the three-month period, I am still protected.
But say I write the post on March 1 and don’t register my copyright until July 1, and later discover that someone infringed upon my rights back in April. I can register my copyright and take them to court for the infringement of my rights, but I cannot sue for statutory damages or attorney’s fees because I did not register in that three-month window.
The message I take away from all of this is: register your copyright now, before your work is stolen. And reregister your copyright every three months if you are adding content (such as to a blog). This way, you are always protected by the three-month clause. In the meantime, if you ever discover someone has infringed upon work written after your last copyright registration, reregister immediately so that the registration will fall in the thirty-day window.
Currently, copyright registration is $45. That’s $180 a year ($45 every three months). Think of it as insurance: for just $15 a month, you are securing the right to sue for both statutory damages and attorney’s fees. Unless you are absolutely confident that you will be able to prove actual damages and those damages are high enough to warrant paying for a federal court case, that $15 a month may be the difference between your decision to pursue legal action and allowing a plagiarist to walk away.
Part II will cover how to register your copyright. It’s easier than you might think, and, honestly, at only $45, it’s one of the most affordable government fees I’ve ever seen.