Notes

To avoid boring misunderstandings and similar, the following are my personal (thus, NTNU, or any other organization, commercial or not, is not involved in any way) views on certain persons, organizations, corporations and other strange creatures: it might explain a thing or two.

While reading, remember that nothing that is written here is meant as a vicious and personal attack on you, or any of your views. Furthermore, remember that freedom of speech is a universal right.

... on copyright and similar issues

Others have written about/said this much better than me, so stop by 10 Big Myths about copyright explained for links and explanations.

For the lazy: everything written/painted/composed/etc. is copyrighted whether there is a copyright-notice present or not. This of course include everything I have ever made. That means I decide what you may do to/with my creations.

Now, derivative works... there seems to be a notion that all artists/creators live in a vacuum and are in no way affected by anything, meaning all the things they make are unique and holy and hosiannah hallelujah. Yeah right. I can understand that for instance authors don't want the characters they have created and maybe cared for be, say, slashed with, say, "Zucchini the magical bikini", but only hermits live in a vacuum. Copyright out to be treated as any other form of property and taxed, and DRM is a very bad idea for western civilization.

... on linking

As with copyright, I'm lazy, get it from the horse's own mouth instead. Short take:

  1. The intention in the design of the web was that normal links should simply be references, with no implied meaning.
  2. A normal hypertext link does NOT necessarily imply that
    • One document endorses the other; or that
    • One document is created by the same person as the other, or that
    • One document is to be considered part of another.
  3. There is no reason to have to ask before making a link to another site
  4. We cannot regard anyone as having the "right not to be referred to" without completely pulling the rug out from under free speech.

There are some fundamental principles about links on which the Web is based. These principles allow the world of distributed hypertext to work. Lawyers, users and providers of technology and content must all agree to respect these principles which have been outlined.

The horse in question, Tim Berners Lee, has much else interesting to say.

... on why those Valid XHTML 1.0!-icons are everywhere

I think standards are good, and sprinkling my pages with 'em is a quick way of testing if those pages follow the standards. Sheer laziness as usual.

... on answering mail

I get a lot of mail, spending hours every day sifting through it. If I were to read it all or reply to it all there would be no time left for anything else, so I don't. If it doesn't look like spam, that is:

then I'll read it. If I feel there is a reason to reply, for instance to answer a question or simply a "yes I'm still alive and bitching" then I'll do that, eventually. The shorter/easier the reply, the quicker and more likely it'll be sent. Long, personal replies are for friends and family, long replies to other mail can take weeks to finish as I tend a bit towards perfectionism... and lately I've gotten forgetful, too. (I blame burning the midnight oil once too often.)

Everything else is way down on the list of priorities; I might miss it completely.

... to spammers and similar cretin':

Blocking spam is a sport I wholeheartedly endorse and sometimes even practice myself. Filters good, graylisting better, complete boycot of any company marketing through spam best. (Spammer-season is an excellent idea but is rather hard to reconcile with being 100% against the death penalty, no matter what. Spammers are rumored to be people... Not that I've ever seen one. Maybe they're something along the line of malignant nature spirits? Maybe voodoo will help?)

... on my preferred style of communicating, verbally as well as orally:

I happen to like sarcasm, and irony, parodies, satire, charcoal-black humor and understatements... Generally I like humor, especially extremely ambiguous words and sentences.

Naturally, this shows!

(I've tried to keep it out of this page, though... You be the judge!)

In fact, if you can't take a joke about something, you still have some growing up to do. (There are still jokes that make me feel sick. Excellent way to discover hidden taboos, jokes.) Life's too short to take seriously.

... on my choice of language:

I write in English because I mostly read English these days, and because my favorite online places are in English. Besides, it helps me separate the real world from the virtual one.

... on my own "get the ball, not the player" policy:

I try not to engage in gossip, flaming and general attacks on persons. (Bill Gates, politicians & similar persons of power excepted...) This does not, however, apply to organizations, corporations, governments (elected or not) and similar collections of persons... no matter the type!

I also have a rather hot temper. Failure is human, forgiveness effectively lowers stress-levels. It's "forgive and forget" in that order for a reason.

... on the look of the front page:

The front-page is red text on black, and will remain so, because:

  1. I'm simply used to it. Some of my first tinkering with computers included adjusting the console-colors into something nice and readable; yellowish for text, red to stand out, on black. I find black-on-white hard on the eyes anyway. (Flyshit on bright! bright! And somebody please shut off the yellow lamp in the big blue room.) I even don't like text on paper that is too white...
  2. It is a protest against...

My apologies to those of you who are color-blind, I know (through testing) that the red might be giving you problems. But the colors stay.

... on the best quote ever:

Clarke's third law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (Arthur C. Clarke)

This 'un has a most excellent corollary:

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. (Gregory Benford)

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