Not entirely sure why, but my Gmail clipbar keeps showing an ad for a book called “Why Mommy is a Democrat” with the tagline “The book George Bush doesn’t want your kids to read!”
Now, you won’t get a lot of complaints about knocking Dubya out of me, but a couple of thoughts:
1. Really? Does Dubya even know this book exists?
2. This implies there are books that Dubya wants your kids to read… which is a highly suspect proposition in the first place.
Also… let kids be kids, Mmmmkay? Teach kids to Do The Right Thing, and let them decide for themselves what political affiliation (if any) they’re going to take. Maybe brainwashing junior to be a Dem (or GOPer) isn’t quite the right way to go, y’know?
For those who don’t know me, I’m firmly on the left side of the fence, but I vote for the candidate I think will be best for the country/state/county/city — not for the little R or D next to the person’s name.
To heck with “Why Mommy is a Democrat,” get the kid some Dr. Seuss and comic books and it’ll work out much better.
I’m all about fair use, and I love it when people link to things that I’ve written. They’re even welcome to quote a couple of relevant paragraphs, because that’s totally kosher under fair use.
What gets my knickers in a twist are folks like 7 Day Web Design that just copy my work wholesale, as they have with my article from Linux.com on WordPress plugins. I’m not alone, I also browsed and found that they seem to have knicked this piece from About.com here, and this About.com article is replicated here. See a pattern here?
Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed my stuff being copied wholesale. Since I have written thousands of articles, blog posts, and suchlike, it’s probably inevitable that someone would decide to rip something off — especially since many of my articles appear on (semi-)high-profile sites.
I tend to grin and bear it when it comes to splogs on Blogger and WordPress.com when it’s obvious that it’s either an automated thing that just grabs content and reposts it, or when it’s obvious it’s someone that really doesn’t understand copyright and just wants to put up a blog. I report the site to the host, or contact the owner (or both), and leave it at that. This, however, really horks me off.
This is a blog from a company that professes to do professional Web design. By blogging, they’re trying to increase their visibility and make more money directly off of my work, which really pisses me off. If a company wants to promote their services with professionally written content, they can pay the writer the rates they deserve. I’m sure this company would be pissed if their site designs were copied wholesale by another company.
Whichever employee or employees are maintaining the blog should know better, and should be fired for this. I hope that their designs are more original than the content that they put up on their blog without credit to the original authors.
If you’re going to leave your number on voicemail (incoming or outgoing) here’s a couple of rules that would make life much easier for all of us:
1) Give the person some verbal cue that they’re about to get a phone number, so that they can plan on writing it down.
2) Speak slowly and clearly.
3) Repeat the number, at least once, preferably twice.
For example, this what you’ll often get if I call you and leave a message. “Hi, this is Joe. [insert reason I’m calling] Please give me a call back as soon as possible. You can reach me at 555-555-5555. That’s 555-555-5555. Best time to reach me is between [insert times here]. Once again, the number is 555-555-5555. Thanks.”
This is what I usually get: “Hi Joe, this is [mumble mumble] at [mumble] calling to [blah]. Call me back at 555-222-555[click].”
There’s a reason why they repeat phone numbers in commercials…
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And there was much rejoicing. With IMAP, I might seriously consider using the Google Apps for Domains service. I’ll pay the $50 a year for a service guarantee per user. No problem. Hope the performance improves…
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