DISQUS

I'm one of these people that has, intentionally, kept "All Rights Reserved" on my photoblog and Flickr posts. I agree with most of your sentiments here, but there is one thing about keeping "All Rights Reserved" on my pictures:

I get to keep all the control and I get a hand in the use of my work. It may sound narcissistic, but this keeps my pictures from being associated with a company, a cause, or a political viewpoint which I do not necessarily agree with.

That's not to say that I am opposed to all uses of my pictures outside of my own blog, but it puts the onus on others to actively seek permission to use them, much like you would seek permission to use music on a podcast not associated with a Creative Commons-style podsafe music clearing house.

If tapping out a simple e-mail to ask about use of a picture is too much for someone, I understand. There are plenty of other sources out there and plenty of other people who float their works to the wind. I just can't bring myself to do the same.

I hope you're able to get back to your photography soon enough. I've missed seeing your flower and landscape shots in my recent Flickr updates.

Like matter conversion to energy, I firmly believe art is the personification of emotion. Without emotion, you have no art, and without art emotion can not exist. I admit I sometimes get an emotional reaction in reviewing photographs I have taken.

I would be more worried if you didn't have some type of emotional reaction from the creation and review process in your work...

Whenever media no longer provides enjoyment in the production, it's time to scale back or eliminate it. Producing for the sake of producing is what drives so many good properties over the proverbial shark. That's one of the many varied reasons I stopped doing SFS.

Do what you want to do when you want to do it. Otherwise, it's a job, not something you love.

But I like my Etch-a-Sketch... It leaves vapor trails when I go off to draw the sun in the corner. ;)

In all serious - I voted absentee this year. With the expected long lines and high turnout, I didn't have the patience to wait in line.

I have to say it's a bit of both for me - lack of "real world" opportunity, plus (relative) ease of the medium.

I've scaled back my efforts a lot recently as well, permanently shelving the podcasts and pretty much all of the writing (no real audience for my ranting anyway) and concentrating on my photography for what it's worth. If I'm going to be cornered and marginalized, might as well be cornered and marginalized doing what I want to do, right? :)

It is a lot coming at once, and I think we're starting to see the signs of socnet burnout. More people are just saying 'No' to signing up for 'X' service, or migrating away from one service because of the fickle nature of the clan mind. I think, over time, you're going to find most folks settle down to 2-3 services, with IM and e-mail thrown in. Any more than that, and socnets become a job unto themselves.

Having victimized myself with a few too many misplaced "rm -f" commands in my time, I know that punched-in-the-gut feeling of losing everything. Glad to see it was able to be rolled back simply enough.

How exactly do you go to perform at a new media expo and not expect people to, you know, engage in new media?! He should have spit that water at his agent instead... (head...desk...)

The line between those who are in their art for the love of it (and then happen to make a few dollars) and those in it for just the dollars gets defined better each day it seems...

[climbs down off soapbox]

Powerful punch. I struggle with these things daily. It's not so simple as "just doing it" though for people that have become punch drunk on failures, ostracizing, and belittlement. At some point along the way just avoiding the failure and the subsequent cleanup becomes easier than trying again.

That's not to say you're wrong or have the wrong perspective, only that the perspective here becomes harder and harder to hold on to over time.

I do believe much of creativity is genetic, rather than environmental. I have as much of a chance of being a singer or drawing a comic book as I do winning the lottery, for example. It's just not my nature, and it never will be.

A lot of these negative ideas and mythology are often reinforced by other artists. I've lost count of the number of people I've run into who, after becoming moderately successful in their particular field(s), become wholly dismissive of anyone who hasn't reached their level of financial or popular success. Maybe it's success going to their head? Maybe it's self-delusion of grandeur? The mythology is not only pushed forth by the "uncreative", but also by people who are somehow afraid that by reaching back down with a hand back in the direction they came from, it would somehow make them less successful than they are.

I have been expanding my sushi choices slowly over the last couple of months. I had some soft-shell crab last week that that was absolutely superb. Even here in Iowa the sushi is good. ;)

Thankfully (or maybe not), it only applies to their network-attached drives [more details: http://tinyurl.com/254z97]. External USB/Firewire and internal drives are as of yet unaffected, so my Airport Extreme network and Passport drives are safe -- for now.

Now, I'm not condoning what they're doing here. In fact, I'm with you that this is another dumb idea on the parade route of dumb ideas. No doubt someone in WD's management has had their ear tugged on by the likes of the Hollywood and/or Big Music.

Sadly, most of the people these devices are marketed to will not realize they've been duped until they face the frustration of why they can only listen to their music from the one computer that's 100 feet from the stereo.

From the sounds of it, I have purchased my last Western Digital drive.

If you are so inclined, something for the music side "Suffering From Sanity" would be great. Improvisation not only welcomed, but encouraged. :)

Thanks!

Another point to note: make sure when the CFL does eventually die that you do not just throw them in the trash. CFL's contain a non-trivial amount of mercury and therefore should be routed to a proper recycling center rather than disposing of them in a landfill.

A test comment, per your request. Hope the site move finishes well.

Let's face one undeniable fact -- there are whack-jobs on both sides of this conversation. The ability to spew hyperbole is not constrained to a particular point of view.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have made an unrelated melding of the ideas of being "environmentally respectful" and being a "global warming alarmist".

I can argue your point about government funding being cut for "deniers". I would counter the opposite, at least in the U.S. over the last several years. Scientific studies that suggest climate change has a human component have been suppressed or de-funded by the current administration, over and over again. Unfortunately, rather than concentrating on facts (regardless of what those facts are), we've politicized the entire debate to the point that your opinion is practically formed for you based solely on political ideology.

I can not legitimately fathom how someone could argue against the ideas of "reduce, reuse, and recycle". When the average styrofoam container would take (literally) thousands of years to naturally degrade, it simply amazes me that anyone would mindlessly flip it into the trash can.

You can be environmentally responsible without being a Chicken Little alarmist. Sadly, it's always the extremist on either side of any debate which will get all the press. As long as the extremists are in charge of the debate, we all lose.

Great pointers. Here is another redirect trick that might come in handy for Wordpress...

Since Wordpress tries to be smarter than me, I use htaccess redirects to handle those "protocols" that Wordpress incorrectly tries to translate in my links. Therefore, I end up with redirects like this:

Redirect 301 /gtalk xmpp:abiteofsanity@gmail.com

Which will browser-redirect to whatever application is set to handle Google Talk. Now, I can put a link on my site to http://abiteofsanity.com/gtalk and Wordpress will manage it appropriately. If I try to put the "xmpp" address into the link, Wordpress mangles it trying to turn it back into an "http" link.

While I don't share the particular religious inclination involved, I do understand the sentiment being expressed: the intrinsic want to pray for someone and be prayed for by someone. I've been on the 'receiving' end of such prayers a handful of times in my life (unsolicited), the last when my father died three years ago. It's always been awkward, but I do understand.

This may come over as disrespectful or cynical, but it's not: I think these prayers do something for the person saying the prayer insofar to feel as though they are doing something constructive and helpful when there isn't much of anything else that could be reasonably expected of them. That being said, I appreciate and respect the fact they want to be helpful and are trying, even if I'm enjoying the rain and am not very thirsty.

A topic for discussion when I can stop in Kansas City again, perhaps...

I continue to struggle with this, and I think it's one of the things that holds me back. I just can't get over that self-conscious speedbump in the road.