If we've established that your work is good enough that people will show interest in it and you might be able to make some money, then congratulations! You're ready for copyright!
A copyright, as defined by the US Copyright Office, is "a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works" and it protects the original work of the person who created it.
With copyright, you can make copies of your own work and edit it and it protects you from people who want to make derivitives of it (I'm looking at you, Shepard Fairey).
In order to copyright your work, you can go to the US Copyright Office's website and fill out a form. All you have to do is pay a small fee and voilà! Copyright achieved. Good luck!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Like food reviews?
Let me start by saying that I didn't find this website on accident. This past July, my fiance and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon for a family reunion on my mom's side. We flew into Vegas and were flying out of Vegas as well. On our way back up north to Nevada, we stopped in Kingman, Arizona for a real breakfast (as Pippin in Lord of the Rings would call it, "second breakfast," since we'd already had a small snack back at camp) at a Carl's Jr., which is basically Hardee's of the west.
Anyway, Jared and I each got a breakfast item but opted to share a drink. He doesn't have cooties, so I was cool with that. On the cup was advertised a really disgusting sounding sandwich, which was given a good review by phoood.com. My first instinct? That's a fake website. When I got back to STL, I checked it out and sure enough, it's a real website. And I've been finding myself going back to it for food reviews all the time ever since.
It's good. :)
Also, those are kumquats.
Anyway, Jared and I each got a breakfast item but opted to share a drink. He doesn't have cooties, so I was cool with that. On the cup was advertised a really disgusting sounding sandwich, which was given a good review by phoood.com. My first instinct? That's a fake website. When I got back to STL, I checked it out and sure enough, it's a real website. And I've been finding myself going back to it for food reviews all the time ever since.
It's good. :)
Also, those are kumquats.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
copyeditting and Bad speling
I started writing a story in the beginning of March this year. It started off as just a project to see if I could develop characters, but before I knew it, it had a plot and everything. This is partially relevant to what I found in the book that you made us read (thanks a lot, Doc...).
The assignment was to find something in that chapter that we're going to use at some point in our lives. Like, for news writing or for assignments or whatever else we're supposed to write about at any given time in our lives.
Chapter 5 of the book, on page 73, has a part on it called Standard copy editing and proofreading marks. In that section, it shows all the common mistakes that people tend to make when writing news stories, or anything else for that matter. It's intention was to show the reader the common marks used for editing and proofreading (obviously), but it also shows common mistakes we might make.
"headed for for approval" Above the second 'for' there's a curly-Q telling us that it's a word repeat. I've found myself doing that a couple times, if I get stuck on an idea, take a break in the middle of a sentence, then get back to it, only to accidently repeat the word.
"weapons of masss destruction" That one just has a curly-Q over the third S in 'mass'. Another common error if we're typing a bit too fast.
Here are some mistakes that I find myself making quite frequently...
"the Mayor vetoed" The M in 'mayor' should be lowercase.
"forty miles from town" replace 'forty' with '40' (which is one of those things that confuses the Hell out of me!)
"lost in Atlatna" That's one of those things that happens when you type too fast too. The order of letters get mixed up, and sometimes it's hard to catch if it doesn't autocorrect itself.
"Bedford Falls city council" City Council should be capitalized.
So yeah. That's my two cents.
The assignment was to find something in that chapter that we're going to use at some point in our lives. Like, for news writing or for assignments or whatever else we're supposed to write about at any given time in our lives.
Chapter 5 of the book, on page 73, has a part on it called Standard copy editing and proofreading marks. In that section, it shows all the common mistakes that people tend to make when writing news stories, or anything else for that matter. It's intention was to show the reader the common marks used for editing and proofreading (obviously), but it also shows common mistakes we might make.
"headed for for approval" Above the second 'for' there's a curly-Q telling us that it's a word repeat. I've found myself doing that a couple times, if I get stuck on an idea, take a break in the middle of a sentence, then get back to it, only to accidently repeat the word.
"weapons of masss destruction" That one just has a curly-Q over the third S in 'mass'. Another common error if we're typing a bit too fast.
Here are some mistakes that I find myself making quite frequently...
"the Mayor vetoed" The M in 'mayor' should be lowercase.
"forty miles from town" replace 'forty' with '40' (which is one of those things that confuses the Hell out of me!)
"lost in Atlatna" That's one of those things that happens when you type too fast too. The order of letters get mixed up, and sometimes it's hard to catch if it doesn't autocorrect itself.
"Bedford Falls city council" City Council should be capitalized.
So yeah. That's my two cents.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
My little dog.
My mini-beagle, Maggie, has the most personality I've ever seen in any kind of dog. She's really funny. I've started a blog documenting the funny things she does around the house (and neighborhood).
maggiethelittledog.wordpress.com
maggiethelittledog.wordpress.com
Monday, September 21, 2009
The ethics of pimp-slapping ACORN.
Okay, so we've all been hearing a lot about this ACORN case in which the two college students, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, posed as a pimp and a prostitute and trying to get advice on buying a house and using it as a brothel.
ACORN employees then responded by giving them tips on avoiding taxes on it, keeping the fact that it's a brothel out of the public eye, and claiming the underage girls working for them as dependents, among many others.
According to Wikipedia, ACORN is:
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocate for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. ACORN has over 400,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters[1] in over 100 cities across the U.S.,[2] as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru. ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado.[3] Maude Hurd has been National President of ACORN since 1990.
ACORN's priorities have included: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, better public schools, and other social justice issues. ACORN pursues these goals through demonstration, negotiation, lobbying for legislation, and voter participation.[4] ACORN comprises a number of legally distinct non-profit entities including a nationwide umbrella organization established as a 501(c)(4) that performs lobbying; local chapters established as 501(c)(3) nonpartisan charities; and the ACORN Housing Corporation. These entities champion liberal and labor-oriented causes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN)
I honestly have to applaud in the direction of O'Keefe and Giles for showing America that the organization is crooked, regardless of the legalities of recording people without their knowledge, surreptitious methods of gathering information, blah blah blah. Would it be more ethical if they had asked to film it? Yeah. But would the people of ACORN have provided them with honest information if they'd known they were being recorded? Probably not. Yes, the ethical thing to do would be to make it known that they were filming their responses. But it really honestly wouldn't have been very effective if their main goal was to bring down ACORN. Nobody's honest anymore. It's almost like the best way to get the truth out of people is to get them on secret footage. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, I'm just saying that's how things are these days.
Immanuel Kant would ask both parties: "How would you feel about other people doing this?" To which I think everybody's response would be to look blankly at each other and shrug a shoulder. Because yeah, ACORN giving them tips on breaking the law in several different ways is wrong and so it recording somebody without their knowledge. What I think it boils down to is getting complete and honest information and exposing it, no matter how it's acquired. As Stewie Griffin said in Family Guy, "it's not how you got the pot of gold, all that matters is you beat the Leprechaun." Personally, if a charity or an organization that helps people is corrupt, I want to know about it even if the organization doesn't want that information out.
What I'm saying is that while both parties acted unethically, O'Keefe & Giles were less unethical. What they did, while perhaps not in the best taste, was the lesser of the two evils.
ACORN employees then responded by giving them tips on avoiding taxes on it, keeping the fact that it's a brothel out of the public eye, and claiming the underage girls working for them as dependents, among many others.
According to Wikipedia, ACORN is:
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocate for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. ACORN has over 400,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters[1] in over 100 cities across the U.S.,[2] as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru. ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado.[3] Maude Hurd has been National President of ACORN since 1990.
ACORN's priorities have included: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, better public schools, and other social justice issues. ACORN pursues these goals through demonstration, negotiation, lobbying for legislation, and voter participation.[4] ACORN comprises a number of legally distinct non-profit entities including a nationwide umbrella organization established as a 501(c)(4) that performs lobbying; local chapters established as 501(c)(3) nonpartisan charities; and the ACORN Housing Corporation. These entities champion liberal and labor-oriented causes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN)
I honestly have to applaud in the direction of O'Keefe and Giles for showing America that the organization is crooked, regardless of the legalities of recording people without their knowledge, surreptitious methods of gathering information, blah blah blah. Would it be more ethical if they had asked to film it? Yeah. But would the people of ACORN have provided them with honest information if they'd known they were being recorded? Probably not. Yes, the ethical thing to do would be to make it known that they were filming their responses. But it really honestly wouldn't have been very effective if their main goal was to bring down ACORN. Nobody's honest anymore. It's almost like the best way to get the truth out of people is to get them on secret footage. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, I'm just saying that's how things are these days.
Immanuel Kant would ask both parties: "How would you feel about other people doing this?" To which I think everybody's response would be to look blankly at each other and shrug a shoulder. Because yeah, ACORN giving them tips on breaking the law in several different ways is wrong and so it recording somebody without their knowledge. What I think it boils down to is getting complete and honest information and exposing it, no matter how it's acquired. As Stewie Griffin said in Family Guy, "it's not how you got the pot of gold, all that matters is you beat the Leprechaun." Personally, if a charity or an organization that helps people is corrupt, I want to know about it even if the organization doesn't want that information out.
What I'm saying is that while both parties acted unethically, O'Keefe & Giles were less unethical. What they did, while perhaps not in the best taste, was the lesser of the two evils.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Heineken Commercial
Thanks to Amie for this one. It's pretty funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIutgtzwhAc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIutgtzwhAc
Contemporary World - WWI
Okay, so this wasn't for any of my COMM classes. I wrote it for my humanities class, and since I love history, I thought I'd post it and share it. I think it's sort of interesting. I got an A on it.
A lot contributed to the beginning of World War I and there may or may not have been necessary reasons to start a war. After a series of events and formations of several alliances, the military isolation of France, the Congress of Berlin in 1878 in which Otto von Bismarck failed to try to keep the peace between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the fight between Russia and the Ottoman Empire over control of the Balkans, and the First Balkan war, World War I happened.
In 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated. Following his assassination, Great Britain, France and Russia teamed up to for an alliance called the Triple Entente. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire joins the Central Powers, which was made up of Austria and Germany. At this point, wars were popping up all over Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and some parts of East Asia (p. 879), thus starting World War I.
World War I was probably going to happen anyway, no matter who started it. From the looks of things, it seemed like everybody was fighting over everything. Countries were egging on each other, Germany was deliberitely trying to start fights, France was an extremely hostile country with military isolation, and the fight between Russia, a gargantuan empire, and the Ottoman Empire over the Balkans - any one of those issues would have exploded into a war. One might think that these problems could be solved with communication and comprimise, but sometimes in situations where two countries are fighting over land (eg. Russia and the Ottoman Empire over the Balkans) just talking through something is a lot harder. A country can't just be divided between two countries - so that could have started a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, plus their allies. On the other hand, while France with no allies, they could have easily taken out their anger from that on another one of those countries simply for revenge. That would have started a war between that country and France, who had no allies for a while. The hostility of countries that don't get their way, for example, Germany when they wanted the piece of jungle in Morocco that France owned, can start a war just by the countries around them going over there to try to stop them from starting any extreme fights with anybody.
In my opinion, I think that some sort of war was inevitable. I know it's sort of a pessimistic way of thinking, but it was going to happen sometime somewhere anyway, and there really wasn't anything anybody could do about it. World peace has never existed on earth - people have been fighting each other since the beginning of the human race for dominance, and I think that's just something that nobody has any control over.
A lot contributed to the beginning of World War I and there may or may not have been necessary reasons to start a war. After a series of events and formations of several alliances, the military isolation of France, the Congress of Berlin in 1878 in which Otto von Bismarck failed to try to keep the peace between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the fight between Russia and the Ottoman Empire over control of the Balkans, and the First Balkan war, World War I happened.
In 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated. Following his assassination, Great Britain, France and Russia teamed up to for an alliance called the Triple Entente. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire joins the Central Powers, which was made up of Austria and Germany. At this point, wars were popping up all over Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and some parts of East Asia (p. 879), thus starting World War I.
World War I was probably going to happen anyway, no matter who started it. From the looks of things, it seemed like everybody was fighting over everything. Countries were egging on each other, Germany was deliberitely trying to start fights, France was an extremely hostile country with military isolation, and the fight between Russia, a gargantuan empire, and the Ottoman Empire over the Balkans - any one of those issues would have exploded into a war. One might think that these problems could be solved with communication and comprimise, but sometimes in situations where two countries are fighting over land (eg. Russia and the Ottoman Empire over the Balkans) just talking through something is a lot harder. A country can't just be divided between two countries - so that could have started a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, plus their allies. On the other hand, while France with no allies, they could have easily taken out their anger from that on another one of those countries simply for revenge. That would have started a war between that country and France, who had no allies for a while. The hostility of countries that don't get their way, for example, Germany when they wanted the piece of jungle in Morocco that France owned, can start a war just by the countries around them going over there to try to stop them from starting any extreme fights with anybody.
In my opinion, I think that some sort of war was inevitable. I know it's sort of a pessimistic way of thinking, but it was going to happen sometime somewhere anyway, and there really wasn't anything anybody could do about it. World peace has never existed on earth - people have been fighting each other since the beginning of the human race for dominance, and I think that's just something that nobody has any control over.
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