c/Superbowl

For all your owl related needs!

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I forgot the emergency updates. My gf will send me links of that stuff well before it ever hits the news, if it even makes the actual news.

    Like I mentioned in my comment, I think that it still has a huge user base and it’s free makes it still be the default tool for casting a quick message to the most people for free.


  • I have the Messenger app since some of my best friends still prefer it. It also seems to be useful for occasions where I run into problems sending something to someone via RCS. Not sure if it’s an occasional hiccup since I’m on Android and they’re all iPhone users, but Messenger never has that problem with us.

    I don’t use the Facebook app, but I am on there for an extended time every day. I use it to get the bulk of my content for !superbowl@lemmy.world since all the animal rescues use it. It’s free and still has a huge audience, so it makes sense for them to share their content there. I take the hit and subscribe to every rescue, rehab, and wildlife photographers I come across, filter through all the fake stuff, scams, and privacy violations, and bring the best of it here to share with you all so you don’t need to do it. No need for us all to suffer.

    They share important info, but I get why most people here want nothing to do with it. It’s the only practical way to get info for a large group of charities though, so it’s still a necessary evil for some niche purposes like mine.


  • They go into more nuance in the comment they linked within the comment I shared which addresses their experience with some of the things you mention, where publishers will change/add things, and that new material changes the public domain status, but others will change minor details and and try to call it a new protected work.

    I’ve seen many guitar tab sights get copyright noticed out of existence, but now playing piano and learning about IMSLP, they seem to be very above board and respectful of the law, so it’s interesting to hear of the challenges they face even in trying to comply with established rules.

    Things like what IMSLP provide are at least as much educational and historical materials as they are entertainment, and I’m glad they’re trying to legally preserve it all. I’ll have to look more into their difficulties, it was very interesting reading these 2 posts and their content is very much of interest to me.


  • I see IMSLP has been a regular supporter of the IA. They are somewhat of a Project Gutenburg but for public domain sheet music and recordings, and they are a great source for music students. I imagine they have deep interest in these results. Their comments really highlight some potential difficulties with determination of copyright that can cause digital libraries unnecessary problems.

    I haven’t followed the case too much, as I suspected the big money side was going to win somehow, but sheet music publishing has always been contentious between those selling it and those providing it for free. Sheet music was and is targeted as a form of piracy by record companies and publishers. Even Nintendo gets in on the action.

    If someone can make a buck off of it, they’ll beat you up for giving it away for free.

    We agree that the court case sets a very ugly precedent for libraries like archive.org (and ours). Before you go banning and taking down tens of thousands of items in mad rush, please do seriously consider our comment made shortly before the attack that took you down for two weeks:

    https://blog.archive.org/2024/09/21/lending-of-digitized-books/#comment-492068

    When a publisher reprints something in 1975 that was originally published in 1885 it does not grant a new copyright on any pre-existing public-domain material. There are countless examples (many thousands) on this site of the type of thing mentioned in the above post. When a new edition of a public domain original is issued, the only thing covered by the copyright claim is the new material added which must be at least somewhat original in nature to qualify. This should be made clear in the copyright registration (though they sometimes fail to do so). It should not be solely for a new typeset (in the US and many countries) but only for new additions such as commentaries, annotations, illustrations, prefaces, afterwords and the like. If someone redacts the newly-added material the 1975 print is fine as its reduced to merely a new typesetting of the 1885 original (sometimes a publisher doesn’t even bother to produce a new typeset but literally reprints the old one) – thus with the identical content as the original.

    IMSLP is of course a much smaller site in terms of the sheer number of items in our library. We’re highly specialized after all (music scores, for those who might not be familiar). We have a team dedicated to this kind of thing and we’re always busy at it. We know all about the various games played by publishers. Take a page from our book please. Archive.org has a lot of community goodwill and there are no doubt folks with time to volunteer and do some curating to redact only the kind of newly-added thing mentioned above. Hachette el al really don’t want a public domain. They just want to control everything – despite the fact that they’re clearly benefitting from things in the public domain – just take a look at this short list taken from your own list of “banned books” affected by the decision:

    “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain (first published 1884-85) “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin (first published 1899) “An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser (first published 1925) “Candide” by Voltaire (first published in 1759, also in English translation, again in English 1762) “The Decameron” by Giovanni Bocaccio (written ca.1353, published in English by 1620)

    All five of the originals are public domain worldwide, even the two translated into English. Yet there they are on the list. Yes there are certainly derivative works which are very much under copyright – like Bernstein and Sondheim’s “West Side Story” – based on “Romeo and Juliet” but obviously recast, transformed and adapted in such a way that it’s a work on its own. That one won’t be showing up at IMSLP for quite some time for obvious reasons.

    That being said, publishers have been known to put up “scarecrow notices” on plain old reprints containing nothing at all outside the original. In the US, these are technically illegal. With all the lawfare they’ve conducted over the decades, they’ve got countless folks gaslighted into thinking every claim made is a valid one. As the lyric of a famous song goes: “It ain’t necessarily so.”



  • I still feel grateful for being in the right place to help out some people many years ago.

    I was headed to meet some friends down at the shore and right when I got to town , I stopped by McDonald’s to grab something to eat. It was pretty empty, just the employees and 2 groups of kids.

    There were 4 young teen girls and 3 or 4 older teen boys, and from the second I walked in, I saw the girls were very uncomfortable and the guys kept trying to get them to leave with them. They were trying to call someone to pick them up but nobody could come get them from what I could tell.

    It was very dark out and the town was deserted, so I assumed they were not locals either so they didn’t have many options.

    I asked them if they wanted a ride and they quickly said yes and literally jumped in my car as fast as they could. They were a decent number of blocks away, and they were very happy to be back at their rental.

    I assume nothing serious would have happened, but it probably would have made the rest of their trip shitty if they had to worry if those guys knew where they were staying. I couldn’t have just ignored them without offering to help though, they all seemed on the verge of tears.

    It was a little mind blowing how they’d just jump in a stranger’s car, but I was at least a neutral party when the other guys were already verified creeps. I wasn’t much older, about 20, so not in creepy old man territory yet, so that probably helped. As I said, I still think about how I got to be someone’s champion that day, and it makes me feel good to know I helped out.

    I imagine you’re an adult, so you should have a decent radar for picking out some non-creep stranger. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I didn’t have much time to process the situation until after the girls had left, but seeing someone desperate for help I’d think would have most people willing to accommodate getting you to your car or a better public place. Most people are good and would help out if asked.




  • It was hard to post today, but I told myself that I still wanted to try to give you guys what I could, so I put up some of the best I had in my stash of posts.

    I try to keep politics out of it, but as I focus on habitat preservation and animal protections, it’s hard to stay totally out of it.

    I do have stuff ready to start Owl of the Year. I was going to do a preliminary round this week, but I’m going to let people deal with their emotions for a couple days, I think.

    To anyone feeling nervous by the results, know I care about of all you guys, and most of the people I love are potentially affected as well. Anyone who cares about nature is always welcome to come and enjoy the owls with me.




  • I don’t recall how I heard about For All Mankind, and I never see it mentioned very much, but I have had such a great time watching that.

    It’s an alternate history of the space race from the 60s onward, and it’s so exciting to watch what could have been. Each season jumps forward a decade, so the advances in missions and tech keep leaping forward.

    If you grew up thinking we should be pioneering space by now, you will probably enjoy it.


  • With as much Russian Kool-aid America has drank at this point, I feel the country as a whole is still doing a lot to help Ukraine. I can get behind a plan for The West to take a more active role, but I would rather see that be lead by NATO or a European coalition that having the US go in with guns blazing. I don’t feel any county, including Russia, as far as the actual citizens at least, will benefit from a Russian success. With so many parties that should be concerned with the outcome, I’d rather see the US remain in a supporting role to put to bed any accusations of this being some kind of colonialism.


  • While this is somewhat of a bad take IMO, I looked up this guy and while he is a Republican, he has been steadfast in his support for Ukraine, and even has a very based official website discussing what aid is going to Ukraine, and as part of his committee duties has worked to come up with planning to ensure Ukraine does not give in to Russia and insists the US should increase aid to Ukraine.

    From the Proposed Plan for Victory in Ukraine:

    Ukraine needs the longest-range variant of ATACMS, F-16s, and sufficient quantities of cluster munitions, artillery, air defenses, and armor to make a difference on the battlefield. … A path to victory for Ukraine will require (1) providing critical weapons to Ukraine at the speed of relevance, (2) tightening sanctions on the Putin regime, and (3) transferring [$300 billion of] frozen Russian sovereign assets to Ukraine.

    This strategy will ensure Ukraine is able to make the needed advances on the battlefield to force Putin to the negotiating table. If Ukraine doesn’t negotiate from a position of strength, there can be no lasting peace.

    Russian forces have committed countless war crimes in Ukraine, including executions, torture, and rape. Russia has also kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and sent them to so-called re-education camps in Russia and occupied Ukraine. Those responsible for these crimes must face justice. If Russia is able to conquer more of Ukraine, millions more innocent civilians will be subject to a similarly horrific fate.

    The rest of the document is biased Republican garbage, bashing Biden and other rhetoric, but it is a plus to see there are at least some Republicans (2 others worked with Turner on the Plan for Victory) supporting Ukraine, despite some questionable motivation. This gives me a little bit of hopefulness that if Congress doesn’t remain under Democratic leadership that Ukraine may still manage to keep getting support.

    Again, I’m not going to cheer for this guy, but I will give some credit where it’s due that he isn’t following the MAGA crowd in trying to drop support to Ukraine and allow Russia to get away with things. I don’t think the US actively escalating things is going to benefit anyone, but continued supply and support efforts still seem very crucial.






  • Not only this annoyance you mentioned, but my personal little saying is that turn signals aren’t just for the benefit of who you see, but more importantly for anyone you don’t see!

    You should have already made sure you’re clear of everyone before you think about leaving your current path. Using the indicator is a preventative measure for the sake of yourself and anyone in a blind spot or that you failed to notice.