Neanderpundit

Steve at Hog On Ice has been having some fun with a bunch of mouth breathing retards. (no, I won’t link them from here.) Anyway, their message board “f___france” contains direct plagiarizations of Steve’s work. In one case, the material was attributed to the author of the post, and not Steve.

Several pieces of turtle crap have shown up at Steves site (and even here!) bitching about how ‘the material was taken down” (it was not, it’s still up) and how “he was issued an apology”.

Um, let me clue you in on something, you nimrods, because you obviously have no farging idea how this works.

Written material is copyrighted the moment the author is finished writing it, by definition. Oh, there can be timing issues to deal with, and in case of material for publication, most authors will print out a copy of their manuscript and snailmail it to themself, the postmark on the unopened package becoming the legal copyright date. But for the most part, when I click “save” on this, it will be legally my copy right. Not anyone elses. Intellectual property is a big deal, because unlike a guy who fixes cars or refinishes floors, there is no other physical manifestation of the work that the author has done that can be billed for. So theft of IP is a big deal, and nobody takes it as seriously as someone who does this for a living. Here’s a little hint for you, who are all now calling Steve a “loser”. He has the physics degree. He has the law degree. He has the book contract. He has passed his bar. And you, you goat felching fucktards, you have the evidence of stolen intellectual property on your fingers. And it ain’t washing off soon. Whine and cry all you want, get excited all you want, it proves the point, and it makes you look like the pathetic retards you are.

Or something. Lord knows, I was up till all hours on my knees putting my head where ONLY my ass should go. What an insufferable night. And tomorrow I have to make the commute to the office, and so for three days, I’ll be whining about traffic. And the dog will be hoe whining for no apparent reason. Such is life.

I spent the vast majority of my evening with a friend at a local privately funded observatory. The observatory itself is incomplete but he brought his telescope, a Meade RCX400 in 12″

Now, forever ago, I dabbled in amateur astronomy, and enjoyed myself immensely, but I had a very simple mount and a very inexpensive handmade scope. My mount and motor drive (basically, a big ring with a roller on it’s edge) was adequate to more-or less track something once I got it there, but wasn’t much good otherwise.

This meade, I’m telling you, was amazing. It has a calibration routine you have to go through, and once it’s set up, you can go point to point at any damned spot in the sky; it’s a blast.

Now I don’t have 7k to spend on a scope, and i probably never will. THis bastard is about a hundred pounds of carbon fiber, glass, and $kaching. With an aluminum base that is about as solid as they come. Fully electronically controlled. Just point and shoot. We looked at the rings of saturn, a dozen or better messier objects, mars, jupiter. We saw shit that you wouldn’t believe you can see through a scope. Ever see a real quazar? some parts are edible. No, wait… Anyway, it was a great time. It’s harder and harder to find clear skies untouched by artificial light, but if I don’t wear out my welcome, I’ll be taking some pictures this summer, and I’ll post them here. What a blast!