It rained most of the day so I spent several hours researching defibrillators. I got the dates wrong, they have only been around since 1985. Further, the internal model is a combination pacemaker and defibrillator. These doctors are sparing no expense. I’m good practice for the waves of seniors about to hit them between the eyes, no doubt.There are two brands, St. Jude and Medtronic. Bad Bob, who may yet convince me to join the “Broken Hearts” society, reports a Medtronic model (Sprint Fidelis) was recalled. Something to do with bad wiring. The defib and battery pack are separate, connected by wires that run through a vein, pardon me, an artery. Statistics show there are around 150,000 of these implants done per year, but that only 10% ever record a life-saving incident. That’s $3 billion in sales, not bad, considering in the medical device and computer worlds, over half of that is pure profit.
Also, always planning ahead, of the few writing jobs that respond compared to the dozens I send out, one has caught my eye. It is called just4writers, and is some sort of research outfit. (All non-responding ads are flagged as scams.) So far I cannot find any complaints and they pay by prepaid cards, as opposed to the dreaded PayPal. Nor can I find any samples of what they want. The pay is bad at less than $5 for 250 words, but it is a start. I gather they want mostly cerebral material.
Not having anything to go on from just4writers, I reviewed a 2005 copy of the MLA (Modern Language Association) handbook. I see the Millenium copyright changes have filtered through. Mind you, I am detecting a new and extreme brand of pushiness from the publishers, and at times from the authors as well, both parties approaching a disturbing level of conceit. They are increasingly presuming even the single usage of a term as usurpation rather than simple economy over a weak point. Let me explain.
Copyright is to protect the author from plagiarism, it is not a weapon for launching attacks. Copyright does not mean the author can compel others to research every word before it is written. Anyone should be able to occasionally use a word they’ve heard without having to worry whether it is legally protected. That goes double for when the word is used for an entirely different purpose, much like I use the word “Hippie”. But according to MLA, I should quote the original 1960s writer (Bernstein) who coined the term “hipster.” Bull tweed on that.
The handbook makes it clear that plagiarism is rising to become a legal pursuit. It makes every work of length a candidate for prosecution. Since the day I first read a bibliography, I did not like the format nor content. You know what I mean. The author’s name first and thereafter it reads like what it is: self-glorifying advertising. Chances are you quoted the book, not the author, and who gives a damn who printed it what year or what page it is on? That should be the task of the researcher to find out.
The sole determinant of plagiarism should be whether or not the original author lost any material sum of money from the activity. According to the new book, I regularly commit plagiarism, but since nobody loses money, my defense is “So what?” Yet, a proponent of current copyright could have a field day on the Internet. You could be sued for merely saying you agree with an author, but then failing to provide the reader with enough information to run out and buy the book. Smells fishy to me.
By the way, I got the code for the atomic clock. I will be studying it very closely, for it is fascinating, more logical than most people. I cannot explain why this captivates me. Despite just having been read my rights by the copyright people, here is a snippet of the code. Do I need a lawyer?
case 4:
{
char sign;
if ((byte)wwvbFrame->OffSign == 2) {
sign = '-';
} else if ((byte)wwvbFrame->OffSign == 5) {
sign = '+';
} else {
sign = '?';
}
sprintf(msg, "UT1 %c 0.%i", sign, (byte) wwvbFrame->OffVal);
break;
}
And that exemplifies the difference between the two brands of intense curiosity present in all people, usually one or the other. This one is called scientific inquiry. The other is called gossip.
