Jaquandor put up an interesting meme the other day, based around the idea of traveling back in time and encountering an earlier version of yourself. Since I loves me a good Grandfather Paradox, and I’ve now reached a sufficiently curmudgeonish age to dish out unsolicited advice to younger selves, let’s gather up some banana peels and stale beer for the Mr. Fusion and get this DeLorean rolling! Er, hovering. Whatever.
I spotted this video in a couple places yesterday and thought it was worth passing along. The performer is supposedly a homeless, unemployed man, but some people are voicing suspicion; they’re saying the camerawork is a little too professional and the whole thing a bit too polished. One commenter on YouTube suggested that maybe this is a viral created by some ad agency somewhere to bring attention to the cause. That seems reasonable to me, but I really have no idea. Whether this dude is an actor or not, he is an impressive puppeteer, and I found the clip surprisingly poignant. I suspect Jim Henson would be pleased, at least.
Without further ado, I give you “Under Pressure,” the great classic-rock song by Queen and David Bowie, lip-synched by Kermit the Frog and his identical twin:
I learned something yesterday afternoon that’s been eating at me a little, and I want to talk about it here. However, I am reluctant to name names, because I’m not sure there’s anything to be gained from making too big a fuss about this matter, which means this entry is going to be a little… vague. Sorry about that. I hope you’ll bear with me.
There’s this place I know that’s very unique and very scenic, and it makes a nice destination for a Sunday afternoon drive. The place has an interesting history as well; it was quite an endeavor to bring it here to Utah and get it into its current condition. The Girlfriend and I first visited this place a couple years ago, when it was novel and exciting. I took a lot of photos that day, and seeing as how it’s the 21st century and all, I posted several of them to my Flickr photostream. And then I pretty well forgot about them.
Yesterday, Anne and I returned to this place with her parents, and we saw that the owners are now offering a commemorative book for sale. I flipped through the sample copy, thinking it was nicely done, if a bit expensive for what you’re getting. Then, toward the back, I ran across something that looked very familiar. I asked Anne if she saw what I thought I saw, and she agreed with my suspicion. I should’ve asked to speak with a manager right then and there, but her parents were already out the door, and I tend to be pretty non-confrontational in person. So I waited until we got home and then I fired up Flickr and confirmed what Anne and I both already knew.
I’d seen one of my own photos in that book. There was no doubt. It was my photo… The owners of this place that I’ve supported and enjoyed and enthused about right here on this blog ganked my bloody photo without my permission and stuck it in their $55 coffee-table book and are making money from it. And the more I think about the situation, the more it bugs me. I even had a Creative Commons copyright on the picture, all rights reserved; fat lot of good that did me, eh?
The irony here is that if the people behind this had bothered to contact me, I would’ve given them the picture for free. I don’t have any aspirations to make money with my photography. It’s strictly a hobby for me. But it’s the principle of the thing, you know? My photos, like the words I string together here on this blog, are my work, representing my creativity and my skills (such as they are), and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want some credit for them. I didn’t have the chance to pore over every page of the book, but I’m willing to bet my name isn’t anywhere in it. I know photos get passed around the Internet without attribution all the time. Hell, I’m guilty myself of stealing things and reposting them here on Simple Tricks. But I’m not profiting from those little acts of piracy, am I? I think publishing somebody’s work in a book that you’re selling at a considerable mark-up is kind of a different animal.
The question is, what am I going to do about it? I don’t have the money or the stomach for a lawsuit. As I said, I don’t want to make that big a fuss out of this. But I also don’t want it to pass without any mention either. It’s bullshit, and somebody owes me an apology at the least, if not my bloody contributor’s credit. All I know is, my affection for this particular place has taken a major hit, thanks to the dishonesty of the sneaky bastards who own it. The gall, the sheer gall of what they did…
Arg. Reason # 34,567 why life in the 21st Century sucks…
A coworker of mine is currently in Germany, regaling we earthbound drones back home with tales of her adventures via Facebook. She commented this morning on seeing a woman in a full-length burqa emerging from a sex shop and how that seemed “like progress.” And that in turn reminded me of something I saw on Boing Boing a while back.
This is a little on the racy side, but it’s nicely done and very, very interesting… and not just in the immediately obvious way!
Nothing like messing with your cultural stereotypes, eh? As I replied to my traveling friend, you never know what’s going on under those things…
The InterWebs have been buzzing this week with the confirmation of those year-old rumors that Uncle George is planning theatrical re-releases of all six Star Wars films, newly converted into trendy 3D, beginning with The Phantom Menace in 2012 and proceeding with one episode per year through Return of the Jedi in 2018. Assuming, that is, that the earlier releases do well enough at the box office to warrant going through the entire series. Personally, I think it may be a mistake to start with the prequels rather than the Original Trilogy. I know George views them all as one big happy saga and would like for them to be seen in sequence, but the sad truth that he seems unable to accept is that the prequels just aren’t as well-liked as the OT. They have their supporters, true, and I myself am not as hard on them as many of my friends, but I have a bad feeling that the OT is going to get shafted when the prequels fail to perform to whatever expectations the Great Flanneled One has for this event.
So, I’m standing on a street corner in downtown Salt Lake yesterday waiting for the light to change, when this grubby, hipster-y looking guy carrying a suspiciously bulging gym bag steps up to me and says, “Hey, man, would you have any interest in buying — ”
I took a quick step to the left and braced myself for something uncomfortable.
” — a fax machine?”
Out of the dozens of possibilities that had zipped through my mind after the words “interest in buying,” I must confess that a fax machine was not one of them. Sad times are these, when young ruffians feel free to peddle such wares on our formerly respectable city streets…