Scott posted a couple of interesting links and thanked me for some of my links. Among the interesting links he posted was a blog entry about the goal (of having your friends close), which starts off in such a way that I can agree, but ends sounds very self serving and selfish.
I know that I’m different from this author. For instance, I’m flying to Wisconson in November to have Thanksgiving with one of my friends who moved out there rather than whining about it’s unfair that my friend moved way. Certainly I sympathize with the desire to keep all of your friends close and convenient, but it seems a little selfish (even as tongue in cheek humor) to decide that just because your friends move away means that they don’t care about you any more. They have to do what’s best for them, what keeps them a good friend is their desire to keep in touch and their willingness to invest the necessary energy to do so, not giving up the rest of their life to hang on to the past.
I really had my heart set on keeping in touch with a number of people in my life, but the forces at work in my life (combined with my unwillingness to chase people who don’t return my calls, coupled with their unwillingness to stay in touch unless we came within 7 feet of each other daily because of work/etc.) conspired to separate me from several of my good friends. I regret it, which is why I can understand where this author is coming from, but I’ll do my best to stay in touch with those whom I call friends and hope they’ll return the compliment.
Additionally, Scott found a nifty little equation that seems to propose a method of solving the energy crisis [NSFW]. It’s certainly applicable in my case.
In other news, Harry Potter author, JK Rowling won her copyright claim against her fan. That’s right, children’s book author JK Rowling sued a (I’m sure that by now it’s former) fan of the widely popular Harry Potter series for putting together a book deal to print a lexicon that he manages online right now. Interestingly enough, JK Rowling praised the web site administator made book author, saying that she used the online lexicon herself to help research facts in writing the last several books (to help keep the facts straight). And yet, by converting this content from web to print, somehow he’s violated her copyright.
While I guess I can understand the logic behind saying that since this printed lexicon is for-profit instead of for free, the for-profit work violates the copyright since the contents of the lexicon are entirely derived from a single source (i.e., All 7 books of the Harry Potter series). But what I’m not sure I follow is the premise saying that non-profit work is in any way less harmful than for-profit work. Certainly if she intends to let the web site lexicon stand, she should not have problems with the web admin now author trying to recoup a few bucks for the service he did Rowling in providing a lexicon in the first place. Granted, I know nothing about copyright law, but it seems a reasonable way to deal with this would have been to make the web admin now author a deal. He gets a percentage, JK gets a percentage (it is her intellectual property that’s being re-arranged), the publisher gets a percentage, the reader gets their lexicon… everyone is happy.
Instead, I wouldn’t be surprised (or fail to understand) if the fan who got sued decided to take down the HP lexicon on his website.
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