CONduit has been fun so far. I’ve not seen much of the convention, but I did find a place to sit and draw pictures. This was good, because I actually got a little work done — about 80% of a Sunday strip is complete, thanks to some quiet time between whipping out sketches for fans.
I’m too frazzled right now to give a blow-by-blow. I will, however, post a scan of the dragon I drew for the Charity Auction.
I spent the afternoon getting ready for CONduit, sorting through my pile o’ artwork and trying to find stuff suitable for the art auction. Sandra helped a lot, sifting through my pile of “presentable” stuff, and selecting the things that she thought would sell best.
We found a goofy picture I did of Link, from the Nintendo “Legend of Zelda” series of games, and realized it needed a little something. So I took a few minutes and colored it. See?
A few days ago my 7-year-old son grated some cheese, piled it between two slices of bread, and nuked it for a minute. He then ate the whole thing.
I didn’t think much of it. Obviously Sandra had taught him how to make a quick-and-dirty cheese sandwich.
Sandra, however, was puzzled. The only person in the house (up until now, anyway) who grabs materials on hand and synthesizes dishes for which we have no recipe is me. Link just sort of guessed that he could make a cheese sandwich this way, followed through, and fed himself something hot.
I wouldn’t have bothered posting about it, except that he invented a new sandwich again last night: butter, jam, and cheerios. This morning he showed me how to make one, and roped me into prepping a nice butter-jam-and-cheerio sandwich for his lunch.
He’ll never rope me into eating it. If I’m going to eat some weird new dish o’ doom, I’m going to have invented it myself.
–Howard
I have an interesting problem.
A user named “Vastiva” has posted my “I’m ready for all the Jedi to die” Journal entry from May 9th as his own work here on the NationStates forums.
While it’s nice that someone would agree with me to the point that they adopt my position word-for-word, I cannot, as a professional writer, allow my work to be plagiarized in this manner. Sure, you’re all welcome to copy my stuff into your own stuff — you just need to attribute it to me. It’s okay for the occasional snippet (“I’d punch you, but I don’t want to get any stupid on my hands”) to enter the vernacular without me getting credit, but an entire essay is a little much.
That’s not the problem. The problem is that even after registering with that forum, I can’t seem to post a correction. “Vastiva” has his account set up in such a way that it does not accept private messages, and the moderator I PM’d about the matter has done nothing. In short, while the forum is public, I can’t seem to address the matter on my own.
That’s where you come in. If any of you have NationStates accounts, and can post to that thread, I’d appreciate it if you would. You don’t need to post any sort of scathing attack on “Vastiva.” Just point out that, in the interest of accuracy, readers should note that the body of his thread-launching essay was copied word-for-word from Howard Tayler. Then provide a link or two.
I’ll understand if a) none of you have accounts, or b) none of you WITH accounts want to risk engaging in a flame war with a plagiarist. I’m going to let this ride for another day or so, and if no correction has been posted I’ll simply escalate things to the Open Letter.
It’s my forum of last resort, and I really do pity the person on the other end of it. Infamy is like a pair of tight leather pants in the Amazon. It might LOOK cool, but after just a couple of hours it chafes, and that’s just the start of your problems.
–Howard
UPDATE!
The problem has been resolved. Within 2 hours of my original post above, clarification had been posted at the end of the offending thread. Within 8 hours additional clarification had been posted, Vastiva had been personally contacted (by someone with more NationStates karma than me, I suppose), and Vastiva himself updated his original post with appropriate credit and linkage.
Thanks, everybody! (And more especially, thanks to the NationStaters out there who managed to install the foglights of reason onto Vastiva’s chassis.)