Stop Thieves from Stealing Your Content

Stop! Thief!

A reader sent me an e-mail with a link to a wonderful blog post with lots of information about stopping thieves from stealing your content.

Before I go any further, let me clarify something. If a blogger uses a selection — not wholesale copying of the entire work — from another blog AND attributes ownership to the rightful author AND is using the selection for educational purposes, it falls under Fair Use.  That’s the way I roll here — I tell you where the information comes from and tell you how it may help you as an author.

That said,  blogger “Between Naps on the Porch” (BNP) talks about nefarious sorts lifting multiple posts from BNP, stealing text and photos without any attribution, and re-blogging the entire content on a commercial site owned by the thief. BNP slowed the theft using several techniques:

• watermarking original photographs
• using plug-ins to attach messages that travel with content
• asking readers to report content theft
• including back-links to previous posts
• checking the site statistics
• hiring a programmer to write code to make it hard to steal things

and more. Go to the following BNP linked site to learn more about how to stop content thieves from stealing from you. It’s a long, detailed read that is worth your time.

http://betweennapsontheporch.net/stop-scrapers-from-stealing-your-content/

My first bite of November– and it tastes delicious.

Thank you, rarasaur, for visiting my blog and posting a “like.” Your visit led me to your site where this darling photo gave me my first laugh of the day. Laughs are priceless gifts, lifting hearts, bringing mirth, improving mental and physical health. So I love you for the gift.

If the rest of you want a dose of merriment, click the link below.

My first bite of November– and it tastes delicious..

But wait! There’s more. I love this blogger’s ACTION! She inspires me to keep trekking the path. Look at her to do list. Yeah, baby! It’s like the old motivational saying goes: throw enough at the wall, and something will stick. So that will be the topic for tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned for Moore!

Photo of A Bucket List Top Ten

Note from Fay: Banff is on my Bucket List Top Ten. One look at Patrick Latter’s photograph “Vermillion Lakes Sunrise” will show you why. Patrick captures breathtaking images–and sells them, too. Check him out.

Book Cover Design for Indie Authors

Indie author M. S. Fowle struggled getting covers for her own eBooks, so she learned the craft of photo manipulation and the art of cover design to meet her own needs. Then others began to turn to her for help with creating unique book covers.

Thus, Melchelle Designs was born. The business offers premade and custom cover design. If you want to look at a couple of samples of her work, go to the following link:

http://melchelledesigns.com/portfolio/

A good book cover catches the eye of a potential reader. That element of marketing is priceless. Here is a business that can help you.

Will Creative Humans Be Replaced by Machines in the Future?

The intelligence and military agencies of the United States are working on automated systems to replace human  analysts in intelligence work. The human brain is a masterful “sensemaking” device, but it is subject to the human weaknesses of fatigue, bias or stress. Therefore, the government is going all in to find a machine that can do the work as well as an human, and maybe better.

Until now, the agency points out, the human brain has remained “the only known  example of a general-purpose sensemaking system.” Not for long:  Iarpa wants a  computer that would mimic human strengths, like analytic reasoning or learning  from mistakes, but do it without the accompanying weaknesses. The ideal Iarpa  system would first process and explain human sensemaking: why an analyst opted  for one hypothesis over another. Then, the computer would improve upon it, by  determining whether a decision-maker was affected by ambiguous data, deception,  or even denial. Finally, the system would offer its own sensemaking hypothesis – without any extenuating influence – instead.

Iarpa suggests that the  system would help out “overburdened analysts with routine, low-level analytic  tasks.” But a 2001 report from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense  points out that sensemaking is most often compromised in high-stress situations,  and, for that reason, humans are usually the weakest link.

Read more: http://www.disclose.tv/forum/spytech-agency-wants-software-brains-to-connect-the-dots-t13503.html#ixzz27ISZRsVk

All this gets me wondering, will there come a day when machines are used to write books, create poetry, works of art and music? Will a computer frame a photograph as well as Ansel Adams? Will 3-D copiers create art to rival Michelangelo’s masterpieces using flesh and blood models or mere mathematical formulas derived from analysis of 2-D items? And, if that day comes, who will the audience be?

Instagram Tips and Tricks

Instagram Tips and Tricks.

Click the link to pick up some tips and tricks to improve your photographs with Instagram. Great tool for bloggers.

The Photo-Essay and A Writer’s Mistake

When I was a little girl, my parents would take my sister and me to the D. A. R. Constitution Hall weekly for a narrated National Geographic film. I was riveted to the images of foreign peoples in foreign lands doing foreign things. Even though the travelogue ran long past my bedtime, I seldom went to sleep. My wanderlust took root while attending those lectures.

Back to the present.

A favorite blogger of mine is starting, as you read this, a trip to the Canadian Arctic. He will share his exploration via a photo-essay on-line. This is the modern day version of those travelogues of yore.

Springtime in the Arctic. My imagination conjures thunderous rivers fueled by spring thaws. Ice flows break up into bumper cars, slamming logjams and each other on the herky-jerky free float downstream. Wildflowers bewitch. Wildlife beckons. The shift of palette from winter’s monochrome to spring’s lusty plethora is blindingly vivid.  The landscape morphs from icy to lush.

I can’t wait to see the reality of my vision. If you want to follow along, click the link below. I dare you.

http://missluger.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/a-simple-plan

BULLETIN:  My euphoria overwhelmed my reason. I checked my facts — after the fact. Yes, Phil Kneen is preparing for the trip now, but the actual travel happens later. Smash. The sound you hear is my shattered vision of an arctic spring in photographs. Hmmmm. The timing may be better suited to summer rodeos in Calgary. I wonder if Phil can outrun a mad momma grizzly?

P. S. THE LESSON HERE IS CHECK YOUR FACTS FIRST, NOT AFTER YOU HAVE WRITTEN A PIECE.

The arrow of time…

The arrow of time….

This man is a genius with his camera. Soul food for the eyes. I swoon.

The Treasure Folder

The Treasure Folder.

Great stuff for anyone struggling with getting off creative dead center. “The Treasure Folder” is from Nickexposed.com, an artistic photography blog. His advice is helpful for all creative souls, not just photographers. Enjoy.

Sudden (Flash, Micro, Short Short) Fiction, Take 2

On Freshinkadmin’s blog, there was a photo, borrowed from http://ermiliablog.wordpress.com. The photo was to inspire as part of a writing exercise. It suggested a 212 word micro story which follows the image. The story is unedited. I will work on this piece and submit it to my writer’s group for feedback and editing. I am subnitting it here to you. Please feel free to let me know, via comments, if this flash fiction catches your interest or needs a total revision — and why. Without the why, I can’t improve it.

The Feigning

Riding home from town inside the horse-drawn carriage, she is alone, away from prying eyes. She unties the string around the parcel and tears the brown paper, unwrapping a raft of printed sheets. A handwritten note tops the pile.

“My Dear Mr. Kirkland: It is with great pleasure I send you an advance of $50 toward your novel Paramour. I am enclosing proof sheets. Global Press will publish your book straight away. . .”

Without finishing the note, she bangs her cane on the roof of the coach. It signals the driver to halt. She gathers the pages in a satchel and her long skirt in her hands. She steps through the open door to the ground.

“Wait here,” she says to the coachman.

Heading into a thicket of pines, she disappears from view. She emerges in an opening where she can see straight to the sky overhead.  Alone, she dances, head tossed back, and throws the pages into the air. She laughs and squeals to watch paper snow around her.

“I did it. I’m published!”

She spins again, then bends to hold her sides, the corset impeding her breath. She gathers pages, hugging the pile to her bosom. Recomposed, she picks her way back toward her civil life.