Posts by 3410
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On the odd occasion that a cook will present a cake that is burnt to a crisp, and claim that it tastes nice (after being actually observed to taste it), I think you will get a genuine insight into the very peculiar working of their brain. Either they are a liar, or someone with highly unusual tastes, or they're making fun of you (and other possibilities).
Having said that, I've eaten some cakes that have been burnt to a crisp. I don't like the burnt bits, but very often there's something nice about them. So far, I've never actually been presented with anything masquerading as food that was actually charcoal right through. I guess it could happen if the cook was crazy. Even so, it's pretty hard to say they are wrong about it tasting nice, if they persist, and eat the whole thing smacking their lips and saying 'mmmmm, yummy! All you can conclude is they have odd tastes.
I give up.
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[sigh] Ok, substitute "burnt to a crisp", and try again.
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... conclusion...
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The separation of the work's meaning from the author's is I guess the point where I find the theory wanting. It's the author's intention I want to understand.
Think of it this way, Ben. If your best friend bakes you a birthday cake, but when you eat it you discover that it tastes absolutely terrible, will you decide that they intended it to taste terrible, or that they merely failed in their effort to make it delicious?
The former would be a foolish concusion. If it is the latter, you'll understand that the intention of the creator may be very different from the resulting creation.
It's the same with text. An author may try to have the text accurately capture their intent, but there's no guarantee that that will happen. Therefore the meaning of the text is different from the intention of the author of the text.
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Jon,
I'm sure it's been pointed out elsewhere the incongruity of Fair Users / Fair Dealers (whatever) being liable for stepping over the line, when there are no penalties for copyright holders exerting their rights further than the law allows.The obvious upshot is that rights owners often become "absolutists" since, other than bad publicity, there is no incentive for them not to. On the flip side, people exercise their Fair Use / Fair Dealing rights far less than one might otherwise expect, out of a general fear of reprisals, fair or not.
I'm still -- so far -- in the disagree column as far as the Obama/HOPE thing goes, but you have to ask, if that sort of use, or something approaching it, is acceptable, why do we so rarely see examples of it?
Ben Goodacre should have as much right to defend his rights from LBC as they do theirs from him. Instead, he pulls the audio, to 'play on the safe side.'
I'm rather tired right now, this being Auckland's hottest day in at least 140 years, but I hope some of this made some sense. -
Stephen's cartoon... not working... somebody's too damn wrong on the Internet...
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Richard, that's a classic.
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"Nor is it hard to ask for clarification of accidental ambiguity...
How about when the writer is dead, or otherwise unavailable?
Then we're stuck with their ambiguityDon't you get tired from moving the goalposts so often?
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Oh, the author is dead anyway. Didn't you get the memo?
I did, but decided that it meant something else.
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I'll bet someone thought you were 'Mrs. Hulk'.