Ok, I’m playing catchup here, but I just found Mark Helprin’s article about Copyright. John Scalzi has a decent response to all that and others have gone on at length. But there was a quote from Helprin I had to comment on: Were you to have ushered through the many Read more…
Microsoft seems to be in the vanguard, defending a 19th Century economic model for IP law. Not only has it deformed the purpose of its operating system into one giant copy-protection scheme, but now it’s attacking open-source software vendors with vague threats of patent violations. Here’s the problem in a Read more…
Another story popped up on the web from our favorite Kent, Ohio serial plagiarist sheriff’s detective. Two thoughts occur to me. One: Why is it that he has heard of e-mail, but not spell-checking software? Quoth the article: When Herman was caught last fall, he confessed his plagiarism in an Read more…
From the Edmonton Journal, we have the story of a Kent, Ohio police officer, Det. Jack L. Herman, who was quite a thief, apparently buying a series of Canadian plays and slapping his name on them. A blog post has an extended transcript of David Staples’ interview with this literary Read more…
Q: What is the best way to inflame and alienate the the SF blogosphere? A: Call everyone who publishes their work on the internet a webscab (don’t pick it, it may become infected) Check out the blogstorm Dr. Hendrix has started, here, and here, and here, oh, here‘s one, or Read more…
Came across this bizarre rant by the current VP of SFWA: I’m also opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a Read more…
The Union of Concerned Scientists has published a guide that serves as a good counterpoint to an earlier post of mine about the ugly interaction between politics and science. The only problem is that the examples are U.S.-centric and post-2001 so it’s a little lopsided (i.e. the current American bureaucracy Read more…
This is from a friend of mine in college radio. While I’m all for IP rights, it irks me when someone steps between me and my rights just to enrich themselves. Not to mention the Kafkaesqe red tape is truly frightening: WCSB 89.3 FM in Cleveland and other college radio Read more…
Ok, I just heard the phrase “debate on global warming/climate change” one too many times. You have three guesses on exactly what pisses me off about that phrase. If you want a hint about what’s ticking me off, I’ll quote myself from my ScienceReligion post: “Science is observable fact. Period. Read more…
And actually moderating comments. Sorry about that 🙁 I just recently had a number of issues that took me away from my Blog, the prime one of which being a car accident back in October. I’m fine, but the Ford F150 I was driving was totaled— apparently, the frame was Read more…