BunkBlog

Did you know that not all books pay royalties to their authors or estates? Public Domain is a great concept, in fact it is the default status for all works. Copyright is an artificial construct intended to encourage artists to publish their works, in exchange for a time-limited monopoly on copies. Gets the authors some money for their work, but the art is eventually free for all. When the USA was founded, copyright was set at 14 years, with an additional 14 year extension possible. Copyright now in the US is set at 70 years after the death of the author. Nuts, eh? How is giving his heirs a monopoly going to encourage the author to produce more work after he’s dead? The logic behind copyright is completely twisted by post-mortem rights, especially on the order of 2 generations.

Anyway, I’ve gotten up to 1995 in downloading the Gutenberg Project, and now I see this new thing. It’s a bookmobile that doesn’t loan books, it gives them out. That’s right, the books cost about one buck each, all nicely bound and laser-printed. The catch – the books are all public domain, which is the only way to afford giving them away, and led to my opening rant. Ta

So my December trip to Florida is now in November, and the October trip to Hawaii is now in December. Wonder what will change next?

So, anyone in the Jacksonville area have any suggestions for 14-15 November activities?
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Computer reviewers should really know of what they speak before writing an article as an expert in the field. From an article on Lindows:

The KDE desktop looks and feels like Windows, with a few exceptions. You have to double-click an icon on the desktop to get it to open, but only single-click an icon in the toolbar to get the same result.

Now, forgive me if I’m dense, but on the equivalent of the “toolbar” in Windows, the Quicklaunch Toolbar, do you single-click or double-click? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
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1. What are your favorite ways to relax and unwind? Read, play simplistic video games.
2. What do you do the moment you get home from work? Look at the answering machine, hit CTRL-E to download email.
3. What are your favorite aromatherapeutic smells? NONE of them.
4. Do you feel more relaxed with a group of friends or hanging out by yourself? Alone, more often than not.
5. What is something that you feel is relaxing but most people don’t? Can’t think of anything. Some people don’t find making graphics relaxing, but they don’t count.

What is up with question #3? That doesn’t fit at all!
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Is that really the guy from “Men At Work” in there?
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Why can I barely break 70,000 on Big Money for Windows, but I can reliably hit 150,000 on Big Money for Palm? I’d think the scoring and difficulty would be comparable…

Can you tell my job is not too challenging at times? It’s like being back in the army – long stretches of boredom punctuated by short periods of panic. Management by Panic, suppose that’s a term yet?
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Justin did Britney

Can you believe this is a Knight-Ridder wire story? Slow day.
current_music: Poe – Not a Virgin
current_mood: amused

The store has some new stuff. The fine folks at Cafepress have added stickers, lunchboxes, and kid’s clothes to the line. Pretty neat.
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I made a few orphans this morning. Janeane Garofalo and Warcraft III. Nice combination, eh?

Anyway, they’re up at my orphan page, if you want a new look. The Garofalo ones are on the second page of unclaimed images, the Warcraft ones on the first page.
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I’ve seen this a few times now and it never fails to amuse: caffeinated soap. heh
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1. Would you say you’re good at keeping in touch with people? Not particularly.
2. Which communication method do you usually prefer/use: email, phone, snail mail, weblog comments, personal meetings? Why? Email or LJ comments, cuz it doesn’t require stamps nor synchronizing schedules.
3. Do you have an instant messenger program? How many? Why or why not? How often do you use it? Yes, all of them plus Trillian. Because friends use AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, and MSN. OK, almost nobody uses MSN because it sucks ass, but my family uses it. Pretty much daily use.
4. Do most of your close friends live nearby or far away? Opposite ends of the continent.
5. Are you an “out of sight out of mind” person or do you believe that “absence makes the heart grow fonder?” Generally the first, but some people won’t leave my heart no matter what.

Not a bad set of questions today, if more than five listed anyhow.
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In my continuing playtime with the Gutenberg Project, I discovered some cool stuff tonight. Not only do I have some photos from the Trinity Project and the Cave Paintings in France, but there is a complete copy of the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica. Cool, huh?

Update: Yeah, only the first of 28 volumes. Damn.
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One of the highest-traffic clients hitting my site is WestPac Bank in Australia. Um, do the banks in Oz provide internet access, or are there lots of bored tellers there?
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An enjoyable solitary evening for a geek:
Enterprise season premiere.
Twilight Zone series premiere
Renaming Gutenberg files from 1994 to be user-friendly, while listening to MIDI files of Beethoven’s Fifth.

Not at all unusual. 🙂
current_music: Beethoven’s Fifth – Second Movement
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The army has patches for every major unit, but the clipart collections that are out in the retail market only have some of them. Shoot, the 1st Cav patch in Corel Gallery is in greyscale! Like it would have taken any extra effort to slap in some yellow? Anyway, in my efforts to do many things in the army, including an awful lot of off-duty graphic design work, I’ve made a few patches and scrounged others together. So, click on a patch below to get the WMF file for it, or click here for the ZIP file containing all of them. The big image, by the way, is painted on my office door. No, I didn’t paint anything myself. I’m more a computer geek. 🙂

And, of course, there’s the Army seal, since the one that gets passed around the most has some Yen symbols in the middle of the words!

I’m currently 50cents shy of getting a second commission check from Cafepress. So, anyone who needs some smart-ass clothing or drinkware, head on over and see if you want something!
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Cary Tennis has lots of folks writing him letters this week. A few highlights so far:

Avoid musicians and artists at all costs unless it’s solely a one-night stand.

I fell in love with someone who balances me and makes me happy, not someone that sets me afire because I know that kind of passion is part delusion and always temporary.

Stop calling severe psychological disorders “charming personality quirks.”

If you are a 45-year-old woman and you are dressing like Shakira in public and it is not Halloween, please stop.

Divorce – Parents longing for the freedom of their youth came and left like so many callers at a child’s wake. Some talked to my friends about it, some didn’t. None stayed for very long. All claimed needing to “experience life.” The effects are still being shown to this day — all of my friends either stay in relationships no matter what the cost or leave them no matter what the benefits.

To youth today, everything is a bloody drama.
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Some stories you just have to read yourself. <Chuckle>
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Cthuugle, a parody of Google, contains all the sites you want about the Old Ones…
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Off to a housewarming this afternoon, with a third batch of the brownies everyone loves. I can’t believe nobody asked for the recipe for baklava or black forest cake, but 3 people asked for the recipe for these brownies.

Take boxed brownie mix, prepare as directed and add a half-cup of chopped pecans. Don’t bake yet.
For the topping, take 1 pkg (8 oz) softened cream cheese, 1 lb of powdered sugar, 2 eggs, and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat until smooth, then spread on top of brownie mix. Bake 45 minutes at 350F or until top is golden brown. Tada!