Aphoenix’s Sunny Skies v. Trevor Birchett

Posted on May 1, 2011 by aphoenix

Hello all! I got an interesting email from one Trevor Birchett about my my photo Sunny Skies. Here is the email, with Trevor's email taken out.

I believe we have been in contact before. My picture, "Sunny Skies" is still up on your website. I would appreciate this being taken down, or at least some credit given. The reason I am ticked off about this is because that everyone on your comments page thinks that you took it, when we both know that is a lie. If this is not taken down within the month, further action will be taken.

Thanks,
Trevor Birchett

There are a few things wrong with this email.

  1. I took this picture. I still have the camera somewhere, and I definitely have the original. I'm anal about pictures - I never delete them.
  2. I have never heard from Mr. Birchett before. Sounds scammy to me.
  3. I hate vague threats about copyright infringement, especially when there's no infringement.

I hastily penned a response, and just as hastily deleted it. It takes a bit of effort, but it doesn't hurt anyone to be polite, right? Here is my response:

Hello Mr Birchett,

We have not been in contact before; this is the first I've heard from you.

Unfortunately, I think there is some kind of confusion. While you may have a similar picture, Sunny Skies is one of mine; I still have the original and the camera that it was taken on, and the memory card that it was originally written to. I take false allegations about copyright infringement very seriously, and I do not appreciate being called a liar.

If you wish to pursue this matter further, please note that I will be making all contact between us public on my blog. I will take further contact to mean that you agree to my publishing of emails, letters, or any other form of communication.

Sincerely,

Andrew Phoenix

I hope that stays within the bounds of civility. I was pretty angry when first reading; getting a take down notice regarding a photo that I took is aggravating, and it is even more so because this is one of my most pirated photos. It is used without attribution a lot - TinEye highlights just how much.

I guess it is time to wait and see what happens.

Posted in Confluence | 1 Comment

Good News Everyone!

Posted on April 28, 2011 by aphoenix

In addition to reading this in the voice of Professor Farnsworth, you now know that my IE6 usage has dropped to well under 1%. To those of you still visiting in IE6, please take the time to complain to the internet cafe that you are browing from in Indonesia.

Yes, Google Analytics can be fairly specific...

Posted in Left Brain, Techgnostics | 1 Comment

That’s Undemocratic!

Posted on April 27, 2011 by aphoenix

The past weekend, I was fortunate enough to get involved in a project called That's Undemocratic, which is a tongue-in-cheek political satire site. My good friend Sean had the idea to use a popular style of meme featuring a focal picture, with two text areas, in an effort to remove the efficacy of the words "That's Undemocratic" from the rhetoric of the current Canadian Election. I don't want to get too politically preachy, but it seems like someone who shall remain nameless (but who has the initials "Stephen Harper") used the phrase to describe something perfectly democratic.

It's not a particularly difficult concept, and Imgur is doing the heavy lifting for us, but it was fun to work on. I mostly helped with planning (mostly over the phone) and also contributed the logo.

All you need is love. Du du du du du.

Posted in Left Brain, Techgnostics | Leave a comment

Facebook is your friend. And so can you!

Posted on April 4, 2011 by aphoenix

This is a blog post that I started in around 2008. I'm going to post it, and then hopefully follow up with my more current thoughts on Social networking.

Social Networking. That's one of those buzzwords that I almost cringe when I hear.

There is a gap in Social Networking, and it's right in the middle. When you fall through it, you start to think of Facebook as an end point instead of a starting point. You think Twitter is actually a place to hang out with your friends. You think that Myspace... well, unless you think that Myspace is garbage, you're probably not thinking, and we'll leave that one alone.

The gap in Social Networking is where all the people who don't get it are hanging out. They're the people who keep sending you Farmville invitations and wonder why you're not jumping all over their need for irrigation. For them, the games are a way of hanging out with their friends online. A need to connect like this will prompt people to set their status to something like "nothing to report" which makes everyone else wonder why you'd actually make a status update like that. Why continue updating, when you've admitted that there's nothing left to say?

I'm not going to wax poetic on the transcendental need to shout out that we exist, or by the ennui of hanging out in a virtual world. But what is Social Networking actually for? It's actually pretty simple: Social Networking, in most cases, is just a synonym for Marketing. For most intents and purposes, Social Networking is just a tool to shout out I Exist! But it's no substitute for getting outside and actually talking to your friends (he says in his blog post).

I'm not saying that social sites are bad. I'll admit that I'm not a big fan of TheMyFace, but I use Twitter pretty extensively. So I'm a fan of social networking, but I also hate social networking.

And that's about when I lost steam with my rant on Social Networking. You can still find me on TheMyFace if you look hard, but it's better to find me on the TweetMaker: @andrewphoenix

Posted in Left Brain, Techgnostics | Leave a comment

Kids update

Posted on March 30, 2011 by aphoenix

Well, I haven't actually written anything down about the fact that I am now the father of two awesome girls (no longer just one). Kid2 was born Feb 8, and it's been awesome having a tiny kid around the house, though it has, at times, been a challenge. We're lucky with respect to the sleep thing; she sleeps like a champ. We're also lucky to have an older daughter who is doing an amazing job as a big sister. Kid1 is fantastically caring and awesome and does her best to make sure her little sister has everything she needs.

Kid1 has started to display her proclivity for science. Her favourite activity of an evening is to figure out, set up, hypothesize about and complete a science experiment. For example, the other day, we set out two little basins of water with food colouring in them, then put a paper towel between them to show how capillary action works. We did the same with a piece of standard white paper, after trying to guess if standard paper would go faster or slower than paper towel. That experiment is still going; it is making some fantastic blue / purple / red art in excruciatingly slow fashion.

Kid2 is a baby and does standard baby stuff. It's hard to drum up a whole paragraph about her.

Kid1 is also deeply into fantasy books right now. We have completely The Hobbit and have started The Lord of the Rings, both of which she loves. My wife just finished reading the first Harry Potter book to her; witches, wizards, ents and elves, orcs and hobbits and magic! There's never enough to satisfy. I read LOTR for 45 minutes out loud tonight (including the songs, which she tries to get me to sing) and she was begging for more when I was done. Oh, and just the other day, she came home and very seriously said, "Dad. Some time soon, can we watch Star Wars together?"

Being a Geek Dad is amazing.

Posted in In Review, Right Brain | Leave a comment