Standard Mischief

This is probably the backstory to Clayton Cramer’s finale. The Las Vegas Review-Journal is specifically mentioned as one of Righthaven’s customers in this story by Wired’s Threat Level.

Gibson’s vision is to monetize news content on the backend, by scouring the internet for infringing copies of his client’s articles, then suing and relying on the harsh penalties in the Copyright Act — up to $150,000 for a single infringement — to compel quick settlements.

Clayton claimed he only published excerpts and links, but since he removed his entire archive, that claim is hard to verify. I suppose the Righthaven business model is to buy the right to sue at a pittance from the legacy media and then send out threating letters with an offer of settlement that’s less than the cost of even discussing your fair use legal defense with a lawyer.

While “fair use” is codified in copyright law, there’s no “safe harbor”, no easy-to-understand rulebook for staying in compliance.

I fully support the rights of a copyright holder, but I’m also a defender of fair use, excerpts with attributional, and deep linking.

Last time I went in for an eye exam, my regular doctor wasn’t there. I like my regular doctor because he’s ex-military and understands peep sights, 6 o’clock holds and minutes-of-angle. He’s also the first optical professional that didn’t laugh when I told him my dominant eye sometimes switches. For these reasons I like going to him even if he’s at the awful discount chain around here called For Eyes. I just take my prescription from the Doctor and leave.

The other reason I like him is because he’ll take walk-ins, which is handy if you get flunked on you eye test the day before by the Maryland MVA. The last time I went, it was a walk-in. Since there were no customers, I was able to talk directly to the Optometrist, and I asked when she could fit me in. She said right away, so I asked her if she would provide me with my pupillary distance if I paid her in cash (saving her maybe 2-3% in credit card processing fees, though I’m sure as a professional, she paid her share of taxes in any case). She agreed and then started the exam.

She also showed me how she takes it, and she merely had to read the scale right off the phoropter, which is the big, bulky, “try different lenses until you can see the eyechart” tool. I’m 59.9 mm. While optical professionals are required by law to give you a copy of your prescription, the pupillary distance number is left off, even though it you’re going to need it at some point. The excuse is that this is the responsibility of the Optician that actually fits your glasses. If so, the last three Optician I had order my glasses did it wrong (although one used a proper measuring tool after I refused to accept the wrong frame size she chose using a scientific wild-ass guess instead of the tools of her trade).

With my prescription and pupillary distance, I then hit up a few web pages to understand how glasses are fitted, and then I placed my order at an online retailer called Zenni Optical. Getting ready to order, I went over my old, broken glasses with a metal ruler with a millimeter scale. That let me get the proper size of the frames themselves, including bridge the width and the bridge sizes.

There’s about six sites online to order glasses from, so feel free to pick your favorite. At Zenni Optical, at least you can tell that they’re not spending any profits on the site itself, because it’s awful. I spent about two hours browsing the frames before I groked what was going on. The very cheapest frames were like $8, but what they don’t tell you is that not all frames fit all heads. Even worse is the fact that you can’t enter in say, the width of your head or your pupillary distance and be shown only the frames in stock that would fit. Eventually I got it right, but I looked at the return policy to be sure the risk/reward ratio was acceptable to me. It was. Including shipping I could have re-ordered glasses online nine times in a row before breaking even with my last pair of “fitted” glasses.

I’ve shown my pair to several people, telling them I bought them online and asking how much they guess it cost me. Everyone was amazed at the price. My first pair cost me about $12 plus maybe a bit for shipping, (I don’t have the receipt handy). Mind you that’s bare-bones with a UV coating only. There are also “memory” flexible frames, eyeglass tinting and line-less bifocals to chose from. Zenni lets you order a frame only for half the cost of the frame + lens price, so I would highly recommend ordering yourself some spare parts at the same time if you are as rough on equipment as I am.

Even if you’re happy having someone locally to yell at if things go wrong for your primary pair of glasses, I would highly recommend you get yourself a few backup pairs. As a minimum, I’d say that you need a spare pair of eyeglasses in every glove box, every range bag and every Katrina Kit. Nowadays that does not cost a fortune.

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This post was inspired by Linoge’s, though mine is solely based on my real life experiences and is completely payola free. I’m not your healthcare provider and I’m not dispensing medical advice, (and this sentence is a magic incantation meant to ward off a lawsuit).

Not much to say, but it sure brought a smile to my face.

On an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, it seems that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the word “subjects”. He obliterated that word, and wrote “citizens” over top of it.

(Emphasis mine.)

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

(via Claire)

I woke up today to CBS news on the radio. They thoughtfully reminded me that even though Chicago will more than likely lose their case, not all gun laws will instantly be struck down. That’s a good reminder, because otherwise I’d be outside, shooting guns in the air immediately upon hearing the decision [sarcasm/].

There’s three dissents to read. Somehow Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Sotomayor think you can pick and chose from the Bill of Rights which ones will be allowed to be applied to the states. I’ll personally want to read these three dissents first.

5-4 is too damn close.

I’m going to the range.

…is that it will make you look like an idiot. Getting all sides of the story, and my obsessive-compulsive reading disorder is the reason why I seek out the voices of others I commonly disagree with. Plus you get gems like this.

My favorite wacknut feminists (the ones that call other feminists “anti-feminists” [1]), puzzle over the idiom “(I) don’t dial 911″.

They quickly conclude that it’s some kind of tea party racist thing. Classy. Someone offers a link to Public Enemy’s “911 is a joke”. Having figured that out, the subject is dropped for more hand-wringing elsewhere.

Wrong video.

Just in case I manage to pierce the seal, I’ll issue the standard feministe “trigger warning” for the following video. It doesn’t end in a tragedy, though I can hardly call it a happy ending. And the police do show up, eventually.

Armed Citizens: Calling 911 Doesn’t Always Work 6:45 min.

Click here for pop-up | Direct link

Video by DaveLoneRanger, using images courtesy of Oleg Volk and http://a-human-right.com.

At 4:42, the operator says “…it’s only been two minutes”. Later, while she’s struggling with the stalker, dispatch helpfully quips that the police “are almost there”.

Here’s another expression important for the culturally literate: “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away”.

[1] Feminists who do believe all the equity stuff, but aren’t true believers that the federal government is the solution to all society’s ills are labeled “anti-feminists”. No, I don’t get it either.