Internet - good servant, bad master

When L.M.M Montgomery read a newspaper story about a young orphan girl sent by mistake to a middle-aged brother and sister (the mistake being they wanted a boy to help run the farm) she was inspired to write "Anne of Green Gables". I sometimes wonder if she would have done that if she'd first decided to pop on to Facebook and update her status to "OMG, got brilliant idea for book!" and put in a few rounds of Farmville.

Anyway, luckily she didn't do that.She went on to chronicle most of the life of said Anne, and in one of her later books she used yet another newspaper story as part of the plot. I particularly remember this one because our minister that year preached about it under the guise of "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." I thought he was plagiarising Anne, but actually, he'd turned the same newspaper article into part of his own plot.

The story goes that in the town to which Anne moves with her doctor/surgeon husband, there lives a lady who runs whatever a boarding-house was called in those days (late 1890's). She is mostly accompanied by and has to take care of a grinning shambling idiot (I use that in the descriptive rather than the derogatory sense). He's her previously charming and well-spoken husband. Apparently he charmed her parents - and her - into believing he would be a good husband and then turned into a chronic wifebeater; and one of the only reasons she's not actually badly damaged is that he was a sailor and spent long periods away from home. On one of those trips (to Shanghai) he picked a fight with the wrong crowd and some percussive maintenance on his head turned him into the useless but non-violent wreck he is now. His crew brought him home (thanks, guys!) and now he can't earn money, hence boarding-house. Meantime, a writer has come to finish off his masterpiece, taken up residence at the boarding house and he and the ex-abused wife are in love. The good people of the village look askance at this arrangement (skeevy hoor!) at the same time as not doing a whole lot to help her eke out a living.

Enter Anne's doctor husband, who enthusiastically pronounces his belief that he can cure the idiot's idiocy with surgery, and is totally taken aback when the entire village gets up in arms about the prospect, on account of where Idiot George is better than Wifebeater George. Eventually the doctor gives the wife the choice, and she tells him to go ahead. (The minister said it was because she knew it was her Christian duty; personally I think the doctor sold it to her when he started the sentence "There's a huge risk involved, but.."). Idiot George not only survives the operation, but turns out not to be George at all. Apparently he's Fred, George's identical cousin; he signed on for the Shanghai trip at the last moment and was with him when George picked the fight that ultimately caused George's death, for dead he is. Fred was trying to go to his aid when he saw someone sink a knife in George's stomach and dump him in Shanghai Harbour; and shortly after that Fred's head met something hard and he went into limbo for seven years. The crew brought him home because they couldn't tell the difference between Fred and George and at least George had somewhere to go (thanks, guys!). So the wife is a widow, George is fish poo, and the doctor is suddenly a hero. Everyone is happy, except of course the villagers, who not only have to eat huge helpings of humble pie, they also have to find another village idiot and elect another skeevy hoor. Also Fred, who is now not only jobless and homeless, but has a long and interesting gap on his CV.

The point of this long ramble is that writers have always used sources. Even Shakespeare used the rumours of Danish regicide and insanity to craft Hamlet.

So at what point does using a Source become plagiarism? See, I am fascinated by the hoohah surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey. I haven't read it and probably won't, but when last did a book provoke such a reaction? It apparently sets back the cause of women's rights by fifty years (bzuh?) and there's a mass book burning being organised by the women who run the Auckland abused women's shelter organisation (I don't approve of any book burning on principle; this more so because women have been abused for far longer than books have been around to give their abusers the notion). It is held to be responsible for increased crowds of women visiting hardware stores to buy supplies such as rope and chains (I've tried to stay away from that one).  And then there are those who are screaming PLAGIARISM.

What does it plagiarise?

Apparently, Twilight.

Now, given that the heroine of Fifty Shades apparently signs a contract allowing some filthy rich stranger millionaire to do whatever he wants with her, the only thing I can see that Fifty Shades has in common with Twilight is that it chronicles the unlikely survival of two heroines who share a total disregard for safety and common sense. At least I assume the heroine of Fifty Shades survives, given there's a Book the Second and Book the Third. We all know what happens in Twilight. Well, I do; my then-eleven-year old wanted to read it and I read it first so I would know how much please-explaining I would need to do (the answer is none, though I did emphasize that when you find a creepy stalker of any species lurking in the corner of your bedroom and watching you sleep, the appropriate course of action is to take a nine-iron to him. Or possibly the fairway wood).

So, suicidal heroines and filthy rich weirdos. What else do the books have that support the cries of plagiarism?

So, yes, I did it. I asked Google.

Do you know, there's a blogger out there who collected fifty (heh!) instances of plagiarism between the two? Well, she and her friends.

http://www.fiftyshadesofplagiarism.blogspot.co.nz/

I can't comment, not having read Fifty Shades; but it does strike me that in order to do this they all would have bought copies of Fifty Shades. No such thing as bad publicity, evidently.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/05/the-origins-of-50-shades-of-grey-go-missing.html talks about  "romance-focused site Dear Author, which compared the two works side by side. In one test, using the plagiarism-checker TurnItIn, the texts had 89% similarity." There's a plagiarism checker?
Yes, there is. And here we have the good servant/bad master factor in a nutshell.
For all of this fascinating research time, I WAS NOT WRITING!!!
And so I am writing this, so I will see it and remind myself of what I am supposed to be doing when I get behind my computer. Writing - and using the Internet for that purpose.

Sadface

Neil Armstrong died.That is all.

Gobsmacked. The man speaks fluent crazy.

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2012-08-20/senate-candidates-comments-rape-stir-outcry


Todd Aiken, Missouri Congressman and rabid anti-abortionist, was asked in an interview broadcast Sunday on St. Louis television station KTVI if he would support abortions for women who have been raped.

"It seems to me first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare," Akin said. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," Akin said of a rape victim's chances of becoming pregnant.

While my mind is flailing desperately around the notion that it follows if a rape victim does become pregnant, then it wasn't a legitimate rape, it occurs to me that possibly the flailing comes from the fact that 'legitimate' and 'rape' don't belong in the same sentence or even in the same thought.

My relationship with the nice young men from Vagabond..

... let me tell you about it.

Vagabond, for those just joining us, is a shop supplying all the needs of wargamers young and old, from models and paints to trading cards and scenarios for said wargames. The paints come with wonderful names like Ratskin Flesh, Screamer Pink and Incubi Darkness. Every now and again when Honourable Son needs something, he writes it on a piece of paper, and I go to Vagabond and hand over the piece of paper, and they glance at it and go and get boxes with horrifying things on them and I hand over my card and pay and leave. Scarily, they seem to be able to read his writing. One time in the school holidays I was given a list of paints with names I couldn't decipher - possibly just as well - and the nice young man frowned, looked at me  and said something that might have been "They don't use Bleached Bone white in the new coda; it's supposed to be Maggot Shit white" or possibly not. We stared at each other for a few seconds, then I fished out my mobile, selected Honourable Son from my contacts and meekly handed the phone over. They spoke Vulcan for a short while, or possibly Klingon, and then the nice young man disconnected and gave me my phone back. He went off and came back with several tiny paint pots and a Thing I don't even want to think about and I paid and departed.
Me and the nice young men at Vagabond understand each other perfectly.
So, Honourable Son's birthday is coming up and today I Googlemapped the store (it's moved), printed the map and stuck on the post-it note on which Honourable Son had scrawled what is probably StormRaven. I did have verbal confirmation from him that this is what he wanted.I set off for Queen Street at lunchtime, found the shop, marched in and cheerfully asked for a StormRaven.
The two nice young men glanced meaningfully at each other. One of them stuck out his hand and I meekly handed over my map. He unfolded it, found the post-it note, then looked back at the other one and nodded. The other nice young man disappeared and came back with a box. It has a seriously ugly gunship thing on the cover, bearing no relation at all to any raven I have ever seen. He put the box together with my note into a bag, I paid and left.
Nice young men clearly know better than to believe me, obviously. Wonder what would have happened if I had gone in without my note? Oh wait, I know the answer to that one.
I'd have had to hand over my phone. 

Stormraven. On no account hand one over to an unaccompanied mother.

Massive facepalm

Are there times when you find yourself going, "WHAT? ARE YOU FOR REAL?". This is one of them, for me.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/6769823/Call-for-apology-over-iwi-failure

The people of Ngati Tama deserve an apology from the two men who led the iwi down a path to financial failure, says a board member who resigned.

(an IWI can best be described as a tribe, though many will object to the inference of tribalism in the use of the word TRIBE).

Last night 85-year-old Te Aramau Lake became the first Ngati Tama board of trustees member to speak to the media about how the iwi managed to lose nearly $20 million in failed investments.

Mr Lake, who has been on the Ngati Tama board of trustees since its inception in 2003, said an apology was in order from chairman of the board Stephen White and his son and chief executive, Greg White.

"Nobody has said sorry as yet," Mr Lake said.

The Taranaki Daily News has been unable to contact Greg White despite numerous attempts since a hui on Saturday at Pukearuhe Marae where members heard about how virtually all of the iwi's 2003 Treaty of Waitangi payout of $14.5m had been lost in high-risk investments.

(Hui (Māori assembly))

Stephen White had failed to acknowledge the devastating circumstances the iwi was in, Mr Lake said. "The chairman of the board wouldn't admit there was a loss. There was no sign of compassion or whatever."

During the hui, Mr Lake and fellow board member Peter White resigned from their positions because they felt it was time to see fresh faces on the board, Mr Lake said.

Greg White also resigned as chief executive after coming under pressure from the advisory board which is now investigating Ngati Tama's financial collapse, Mr Lake said.

Mr White was initially elected into the position of chief executive largely through a dynasty process, Mr Lake said.

(Even Google doesn't know what a "dynasty process" is)

Mr White previously worked as a freezing worker, wharfie and roofer, and lacked the experience required for a chief executive role, Mr Lake said. (Does anyone else feel like shrieking, "No shit, Sherlock?") Mr White often proved elusive during his time as chief executive. "We had a hell of a job tracking him down when he was our manager," Mr Lake said.

The last Mr Lake knew, Mr White's chief executive salary was $70,000 but that might have climbed in recent years.

Records on file at the Companies Office show Ngati Tama had shares in an unusual mix of companies including the Eel Enhancement Company, Original Pipe Traders, Open Group, Ikatuna and My Virtual Home, which is now in liquidation costing the tribe more than $12.5m.

(My mouth is still hanging open here. Seriously, the Eel Enhancement Company?

Bugger me, they really exist.

Who knew eels needed enhancing? )

 Ngati Tama was also a sole shareholder in Ikatuna which had stakes in Septic Solutions Taranaki and Tu'Ere Fishing. Greg White had involvement as a director in four of the companies.

(and nobody went on coys.co.nz to check this? On the all-your-eggs-in-one-basket basis?)

Mr Lake said the board was too lenient at times in allowing iwi money to be invested.

(Oh, you think?)

"I think we have to take some blame on that.

"There were things done and said where we never really had a handle on it at all."

Attorney-General Chris Finlayson said it was a very sad situation Ngati Tama were in.

The Crown left iwi to shape their own destiny following any settlement payment, Mr Finlayson said.

"Any ongoing involvement of the Crown in iwi decision-making is a return to a very paternalistic period in our past.

  "It also undermines the concept of full and final settlement, by suggesting the Crown has an ongoing role as guarantor," Mr Finlayson said.

(Wow. Can I have 14 million to blow? I promise to apologise afterwards.)

Seriously, I can’t understand how a board of grown men who elected a totally unqualified CEO via a process unknown to anyone else and then gave him licence to invest over $14 million of Crown money in companies in which he had a principal shareholding can be surprised by the fact that the money is gone, Dave, all gone. And all they seek is an apology. Also, how did $14 million turn into $20 million? And I still want to know how you enhance eels.

                               Gone, Dave.

copper and corks

What an interesting week.
School holidays began, with much choccie from the Easter Bunny.
I discovered that this ideal little corner of teh globe harbours vultures who will prey on a man trying to save costs by doing some of the building of his future home by stealing into said unfinished home and stripping out his copper wiring and tubes to sell on. This forces said already exhausted man to sleep in the shell of his home to stop the thieves. That's throw-up-worthy sickening. All we could do to help was to have his daughter stay over here so he only had one body to worry about in case of incursions. Nice one, human vultures.
For the first time since I've been travelling on the ferry, it had to turn around on Wednesday night. Big easterly wind, waves 2.5 metres and rising, the skipper couldn't see where he was going. The phrase 'bobbing about like a cork' became clear to me, except corks don't really mind which way is up and I rather did. We had to turn around and sail back to Auckland, where they piled us on the more majestic Tiri Cat and sent us back up the Rangitoto Channel. All that was missing was spread arms and "Every night I see you...." from the prow.

First world problems

The ponytail story

"Scientists have said that a "Rapunzel Number" may have helped them to crack a problem that has perplexed humanity since Leonardo da Vinci pondered it 500 years ago.
Scientists from the University of Cambridge and the University of Warwick said they had devised a "Ponytail Shape Equation", which when calculated using the Rapunzel Number and a measure of the curliness of hair can be used to predict the shape of any ponytail."

Really? REALLY? THIS is what we've spent 500 years worrying about?

And another real attention-getter here :

what a waste of space

"Quick change! Samantha Cameron swaps trouser suit for daring pink dress as she sits front row at McQ's hair-raising show"

This is news in what universe? Unless she actually did change as she sat in the front row (no, she didn't) or the dress was actually daring (no, it wasn't) this story is a total waste of bandwidth. However, I am now annoyed because I actually went to the story(to verify the public-change and daring bits) so I started reading the story. That was a mistake.

"She is the ambassador for the British Fashion Council"

What in the name of goodness does a Fashion Council need an ambassador for? Does she get diplomatic immunity while rescuing fashion victims from fashion nazis? What, for that matter, does Fashion even need a Council for?

And then Salma Hayek wades in with more misrepresentation.

"'It was so mind-blowingly extraordinary - every single piece - and very wearable - stuff we can all wear."

The accompanying photograph of her shows, disappointingly, that her brains are still where they were when the show began.
As for the second bit of the sentence.....



Yep, I see myself popping out to PaknSave in that. For sure. Perfect for golf too. That's her hair, BTW - not a hat.

Something we all wanted to know, here, on the anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake...

'Her buttocks are 100 percent real'! Coco Austin undergoes an on-air examination to prove her curves aren't fake"

WHAT???!!!
This is such Bzuh! stuff I find myself reading on while trying to retrieve my jaw off my instep.
It turns out Coco Whatever is married to IceT (heh, Coconut Ice, anyone?) and the bits of the article that don't deal with an ultrasound scan done to prove that her ass is made of meat (because the continued successful operation of the Hadron Particle Collider depends on this vital piece of information, presumably) deal with how she and said husband are looking to buy a new house because she has too many clothes to fit into the old one.

Oh wait, it gets better, That was actually the plot for an entire TV episode.


On the other hand, this made my day.

It's a he-gassen scroll; he-gassen translates literally as fart-battle. I can practically hear my 16-year old Beloved Son shriek, "That's so ninja!". For myself, I'm quietly happy that enough of this type of art exists to actually warrant its own name.