The Mirror of Life

Here is a movie of us singing Happy Birthday to Alastair at his second birthday party. His cake was a Stage cake with a Cars theme.

A while back in NYC there was a nasty crime.  A group of white young men wanted money for drugs and decided to lure a gay black man out and rob him.  They lured him using on-line chat and beat and then ran him in front of a car killing him.

So, the prosecution went after them in addition to the murder charge with a hate crime.

The curve ball was that one of the perps revealed that he was gay himself.  So, he argued…how can he be charged with a hate crime when he attacked a gay man being gay himself?

The prosecution disagreed (and the judge concurred with them noting that:

Under New York law, they [the prosecution] said, defendants can be convicted of a hate crime even if they bear no actual hatred for their victim.

“This is a case where the defendants deliberately set out to commit a violent crime against a man whom they intentionally selected because of his sexual orientation,” wrote state Supreme Court Justice Jill Konviser.

This bothers me.  Then again all hate crimes legislation bothers me.  A crime against a person is a crime.  Hate crimes go to the thoughts and intents of a person and set some crimes as worse simply because of some status of a person.  Does it really matter that Michael Sandy was black, or gay?  He was lured out, robbed, beaten, and then killed.  There is no doubt of that.  Prosecute these cretins for their crimes and put them in jail.  To tack on hate crimes even when (at least one of them) did not “hate” the victim is a travesty (as are all hate crimes).

Yesterday President Bush vetoed the continuation of the S-CHIP program.  Now, the news stories flood with heart-wrenching stories about “the children”.  The hilarious aspect of the situation is that this ABC news story never talks about WHY the President vetoed the legislation.  One would think that would be important, but if you leave it out…then the implication is that it was just cruelty or similar.

How about the expansion of the program to include adults?

How about the expansion of the program to cover people making $83,000/year?

How about the odd way that the program was funded (fund it for a few years then cut funding by 80% in the last year)?

How about using vice taxes to “pay” for it when vice taxes always end up declining in revenues over time?

Any of that get a mention?  Nope.  But, of course…that is “fair coverage”

Fox News and MSNBC both take the time to mention the reasons for the veto, but not ABC.  CBS waits until the bottom of the first page to mention the reasons.

Saw this and it made me laugh.

OK, so this kid decides to wear his John Edwards 2008 T-shirt to school (High School) and gets upset about his free speech being infringed upon when they sent him home.

“Bong Hits for Jesus” anyone (a.k.a Morse v Frederick)?  The point is that a school has a right to set policy that limits the rights of students to promote an environment of learning and preventing disruption.  The school had a clear policy that T-shirts espousing any political nature were prohibited.  In fact, according to the school’s policy a John Deere T-shirt would be prohibited.  Now, had Mr. Palmer (the student in question) actually been able to show that another student was able to wear a non-sanctioned T-shirt (especially one espousing a political position) then he would have grounds on unequal treatment.  This however will likely go nowhere.  I honestly wonder at the student’s thinking in this matter.  Either he never noticed that no one ever wore a T-shirt with a political message, or he knew better and is doing it as a stunt (a la “Don’t Tase Me Bro”).  Either is disturbing.

When I saw this article on the internet today it reminded me of a personal story that was similar.  In Houston, there is a light rail system that runs from downtown to the football stadium through the medical center.  It tends to run right down the middle of a number of busy streets and its main claim to fame (other then costing $1B and having low ridership) was the insane number of car-train accidents that plagued the system.  Eventually they solved the issue by prohibiting left turns along the route of the trains.

When I first heard of the number of accidents I was astounded…how could anyone not see a train (or hear it).  Then I got a very close example of how so many accidents occurred.  I was driving with the family down Fannin and getting ready to make a turn onto MacGregor to take them to the Zoo.  As I was sitting there on Fannin waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear suddenly with no warning a train rolled almost silently by on my left.  Had I not been waiting for the traffic to clear and made my turn we would have been hit by the train (or hit the train).  There were, as I see it, two reasons for this problem.  The first is that the train is electric and almost silent.  I was used to the sound of a normal diesel train as it rumbles down the tracks.  I was also used to the standard train air horn that they blow when they approach a rail crossing.  Those are designed to be heard over a mile away.  The light rail used a much quieter electronic horn that I did not recognize.  The second problem was that the train was on my left as I was making a left hand turn from the left-most lane.  We are not used, as drivers, to looking behind us for oncoming traffic and with the train running down the middle of the road it causes a problem.  In the end this was solved by prohibiting left hard turns where the train runs and the accidents have decreased dramatically.

Another time I was talking to a fellow who was gassing up his Toyota Prius and how he liked the car.  He finished fueling and I was going inside to pay and he almost ran me over.  The vehicle makes almost no sound at low speeds.  I can fully understand the dilemma that a blind person would have regarding hybrid or eventually fuel cell vehicles.  We are likely going to have to integrate some type of audio warning system to prevent accidents.

Last night I took my Mother-In-Law to go see Laura Ingraham give a presenation on her new book Power to the People.  It was held at the Santikos Paladium theater and it had been sold out for a while.  I had tried to get us VIP tickets, but missed it by a day.  Oh well.

One funny thing that I had not really noticed, but was pointed out by the program director was that the theater just to the left of Laura’s was showing a movie.  So on the right you had Laura Ingraham, and on the left…

Yep…on the left was Resident Evil.  We all got a kick out of it.

Then it was time for the presentation.  I only had my cell phone camera so the photos are lousy, but here is one shot using the digital zoom (lousy I know, but I am kicking myself for not bringing my camera with the 10X Optical Zoom

Afterwards we stood in line to get our copy of her book signed.  Peggy even got to shake Laura’s hand.

Another terrible photo, but ya get the idea.

Lastly there were some Ron Paul fanatics that attended.  They were a hoot and all held their signs.  I wanted to get into it with them…but we decided it was too nice a night for that.

and

All in all it was a great night and we had a blast.  Dennis Prager is in town next and I think we will definitely have to sign up for that one.

Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R)

92.96% match

Other Top Matches

California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) - 91.55%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) - 88.73%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 88.73%

I am not sure I agree with their scoring system.  I like some of Tancredo’s ideas but he is a bit too one-issue.  Duncan Hunter is a great candidate, and its too bad that he is not getting more traction for the sexier Thompson, Guiliani, Romney, McCain caucus.  Ahh well. 

You can check yourself out.

And this one as well.

 This one is neat because you can answer the questions and then adjust the weight of various sections.  My top three there Romney, Tancredo, and Brownback.  When I adjusted the Tax Reform to max importance, then Tancredo toped Romney, otherwise he was second to Romney.

Roberta’s Mom drove past the new house site and saw that there was something different.  So we went by and saw that they have the batter boards up getting ready to build out the plumbing and then pour the slab.  Exciting.  So we snapped some photos.

Yep, this is our plot of dirt and boards

Here is a shot of the interior, you can see where the slab will be for the back porch.

And here is a shot from where the back fence will be.  Looking towards the back of the house.

Over the Labor Day weekend there blew up a weird story that involved the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) and the website scribd.com.  For those not in the know (like me), scribd.com allows users to upload text files and share them with users in a collaborative format (not unlike Flikr).  Now the problem arose when a number of users on the scribd.com site started posting copyrited materials.  These included the texts to a number of novels by writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg and others.  To sum up the fracas, SFWA acts as an advocate for authors that do not have the means to protect their own copyrights, and also specifically for the estates of some authors (Silveberg to be one).  So, the SFWA tried to contact scribd.com to get them to stop the posting of the files.  It appears that scribd.com was not exactly cooperative with SFWA and so the SFWA sent them an e-mail that claimed to be a DMCA notice.  The DMCA is very explicit on how such takedown notices must be formatted and the SFWA did not meet those guidelines.  Additionally the SFWA did not vet their list properly and included works that were in the public domain or used a Creative Commons license for free distribution.

Now the fun really began. 

Scribd.com did start to take down some of the copyrited works, but two other things happened.  One was that a novel by Cory Doctorow entitled Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.  To be fair, SFWA did mess up.  Their takedown notice was not in the correct format, and also included works that they did not have the authority to request a takedown for.  This was a mistake.  The President of the SFWA apologized for the mistake and the organization disbanded its ePiracy group.  Scribd.com did being to make efforts to remove much of the copyrited material, but evidently not all.  They also contacted the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) to begin litigation against SFWA (or at least threatened to do so).  This was likely the major reason for the disbanding of the ePiracy group in SFWA.

But this brings up some very interesting points.  There has been a lot of discussion on this topic (and I liked to a large number of articles about it below), but the theme tends to run along a couple of salient points.

First…who should protect the IP of a writer?

Second…Should the SFWA act on behalf of its members to protect their IP?

Third…just how bad/stupid is the DMCA and should it be repealed/modified?

Fourth…just who is the victim in this affair, scribd,com, SFWA, the authors, Cory Doctorow, anyone?

Fifth…is IP really something that can/should be protected?

Ideally, when an person creates something, a book, a painting, a photograph, software, music, etc., they should be able to decide how it is distributed.  For example, professionally I create software systems for the use of companies.  Part of my employment agreement is that my employer owns the rights to anything that I create.  This is OK with me as I don’t really want to own it (and assume the liability).  In compensation I get paid well for my IP.  I also like to take photos with my digital camera, and I like to write blog entries (like this one).  In those cases, I do not attempt to make money off of them (and honestly would just be thrilled to be recognized as taking a cool photo, or writing an insightful blog entry).  So, for the most part, I freely distribute them in the hopes of my Instalanche ™ or similar 15 minutes of fame.

But what, if I made my living from selling photos that I took?  What if my written word was my livelihood?  I doubt that I would be all that happy to see it distributed without my being paid for it.  It would be no different from my work at a company being given to another company without my employer being paid for it.  This is, in essence, the fight over Intellectual Property. 

So, who should protect a creator or IP from someone using or distributing their work (without their permission) and not paying for it?  Well, the US government has laws (specifically the DMCA and the Copyright act of 1975) that protect the rights of creators.  They aren’t the best laws, and they have a lot of problems with them, but they do allow for creators to stop people from, in effect, stealing from them.

John Ringo, one of my favorite authors currently, says that this is the job of the publisher.  In his words

Jerry says that ‘absent SFWA’ no one will protect the rights of the authors. In a way, he’s correct. But authors shouldn’t have to defend their rights.

That is what publishers are for.
If the work is currently in circulation and the publisher does not support ‘free range’ ebooks, let the publisher’s legal department handle it. They have lawyers and paralegals and all the rest. They may even have database people who can create a simple query. ‘If: book = free-range Then: Don’t Sue’

He has a point, but I would point out that not every publisher has the deep pockets that allow them to pursue such legal adventures.  Not only that, but for many authors their works are not mainline books that publish tens of thousands of copies and make the author millions of dollars.  And what if they aren’t books, but magazine articles, photographs, or essays?  In Mr. Ringo’s case, his publisher makes hundreds of books freely available on their website.  They also have a policy that if you purchase an eBook from their site that you CAN distribute it.  Its a great marketing policy and got me interested in the Belesarius and Lt Leary series by David Drake.  It also got me to read Mr. Ringo’s series with David Weber (The Prince Roger Series).  I don’t dispute that eBooks are a great way to market.  I DO dispute that every author must feel that way…or more importantly every creator.  What does a creator do, when their distributor (publisher) does not bother to enforce their copyrights?  After all, its the author that is loosing the money.  The distributor is loosing only potential revenue, and they might not care.  Jerry Pournelle brings up a very good point that some of his books have exclusive electronic distribution channels and thus he is not even allowed to publish them himself on his website.  Why should scribd.com be allowed to make money on his works in a way that he is not?

As of now, the SFWA is out of the ePiracy business.  To some this is a good thing, to others, it isn’t.  How this all turns out remains to be seen.  For the 800lb gorillas in the marketplace (the Ringos, the Webers, etc.) they will likely continue to have the financial wherewithal to stop people from stealing their IP.  As I wonder what will happen when my wife publishes her books…will she be able to stop someone from stealing her IP and making money off of it?  I hope so.  But, since we won’t likely have the money to prosecute…I hope that some group (SFWA, her publisher, or some other group) will be able to help us out if such a thing happens.  Of course…what I really am hoping for is that her works are so amazingly popular that this will be a real issue for us (cause that will mean that we are going to be crazy rich!!!).

I recommend reading first the essay by Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing.  Then the article on Ars Technica.  They are the most critical of the entire affair casting the SFWA in the mold of RIAA or the MPAA as a corporate entity that is trying to squash scribd.com.

Then I would recommend reading Jerry Pournelle’s discussion on his website Chaos Manner Reviews.

Dr. Pournelle pointed me to some essays by Peter N. Glaskowsky here, here and here.  He delves into some of the more amazing levels of scribd.com abuses by its members.

You can also read the scribd.com office response on their blog.

John Scalzi (an author that I like even if I think he is a political dolt) ran for president of SFWA and lost.  He was asked by his readers to talk about it and I think he pens and excellent, well written, and very balanced article that points out the mud on both parties faces.  He did used to be a reporter and it shows in his writing here. 

Lastly, I learned of this brou-ha-ha by reading John Ringo’s website (I had just finished reading Vorpal Blade, very good BTW), and was looking at his upcoming releases when I saw a post about “That SRIBD thing”.  I didn’t know what it was so I opened it and then read Pournelle’s piece.

All in all it was worth spending my lunch reading about all of this.  I have to admit that I have mixed feelings on the issue due to my work being a creator (over which I don’t technically hold any rights) and being married to a creator (whom I hope to one day have to honestly worry about having her stuff stolen because it is so popular).