Let me play a sad song for you on the world’s smallest violin…
7 minute read
October 29, 2021, 9:36 AM
Do you remember about a month or so ago, when I made that Journal entry about Jeremy Jones, the guy who used several of my photos in an infringing manner, and lost his Twitter account for it? He recently came back to badger me via Messenger one more time, and this time, unlike the silence that I had been giving him after my first response where I said that the matter was already resolved, I let him have it. I told him that his losing his Twitter account was not my problem, that calling my parents in search of me was completely out of line, and I included the link to the earlier Journal entry.
I got a rather long-winded response to that message, and the sense that I got was that he had no real argument, and this was mostly an attempt to verbally lick his wounds in order to make himself feel better after being told in a definitive manner that I wasn’t playing:
Hey Ben,
Appreciate the response. I respect your decision, didn’t really know that you felt that way but I understand now. If you’re open to it, I’d like to explain how I feel about this situation now.
I think in the future you should try to be more compassionate and really understand what’s going on before writing me off because the way that you describe some of these things in the article are simply not true. For instance, this happens to be my first rodeo because the claims that people made would goto a specific email and those emails have all been deleted. So because of that I wasn’t able to be notified about any claims made against my account nor have the proper way to get in contact. On top of that I had ZERO KNOWLEDGE that using other people images was even an issue and I’m sure that’s hard for you to believe because you’re in the photography industry but it’s 100% true and is also 100% my fault for not knowing. Secondly, it does mean this much to me.. it took me time to get in contact with you because I don’t have the emails associated with the claims, I found yours on a site called lumendatabase.org and that’s how I reached out. I’m sure you don’t care about this stuff but in no way was I malicious in my intent to use your photos if anything I used your photos because they were a great way to represent what we were posting about at the time. I would normally read a story, goto google, save a picture and post it not even knowing what I was doing. Thirdly, I can’t believe that you would assume that me offering to help you in return isn’t genuine. I’m not even sure how you’d come to that conclusion. I was always taught to bring something to the table when asking and I was simply doing that in a very genuine way. I had plans and ways that I could help for the mishap. But that’s neither here no there, I respect your decision and I will no longer contact you. Thanks for your time.
Continue reading…Categories: Copyright infringement, Some people
Regretting the shot not taken…
20 minute read
October 14, 2021, 10:04 PM
Some of you may remember that a month or so ago, there was a large protest on Reddit about COVID misinformation, targeting a subreddit called /r/NoNewNormal. The idea of the protest was that a number of subreddits “went private”, i.e. stopped accepting submissions, and vowed to stay that way until Reddit management did something about this subreddit, after Reddit management had previously stated that they were not going to intervene. Ultimately, /r/NoNewNormal was banned, and as such, the subreddit and all of its contents were removed from the Internet, as if they had never existed. I have mixed feelings about the whole affair, and I feel like I have a unique perspective on it, because I used to moderate the subreddit, and probably did the most in building it, and then once it caught on, it slowly morphed into something that it should never have been.
First of all, my own stance on the whole pandemic is no secret. I wrote a very long Journal entry about it back in May. In short, I said that vaccination is the only way out of this, and that we should have never fooled around with much of the fabric of society like we did. We should have never mandated masks, lockdowns, closures, plastic shields, social distancing, or any other weird new rules and restrictions. And then when the vaccine became available, get it without delay. That has been my stance more or less from the outset. The entirety of “your part” in this is getting vaccinated. Aside from that, nothing else matters, so leave me alone. I took an exceptionally dim view of people who tried to justify all of these changes as a “new normal” like they expected this to remain a thing for the foreseeable future, as well as playing the “wE’rE iN a PaNdEmIc!1!1!” card as an excuse to be exceptionally rude and/or judgmental with other people who disagree with them.
At the same time, it initially felt like those of us who opposed all of these new rules, ostensibly to curb the spread of COVID-19, were fairly alone in our opinions. The sense that I got was that most people were all in agreement on these measures, and that I was the odd man out. Then I discovered the /r/LockdownSkepticism and /r/EndtheLockdowns subreddits. These were people who thought more like me on these matters, i.e. that the lockdowns and related measures were security theater. I later found /r/NoNewNormal, which was started a little bit after the other two, and I tended to participate in that subreddit most, as it had the post quality of /r/LockdownSkepticism, but unlike /r/LockdownSkepticism, it did not have a “gatekeeper” for posts. I tend not to post in communities that have gatekeepers, because I don’t want to waste my time posting somewhere when there’s a chance that no one will ever see my post based on the whims of some anonymous approver. If I go to the trouble of posting something, I want a guarantee that it gets seen. In any case, /r/NoNewNormal fit that bill, with decent, open discussion and no gatekeeper. It was described in its sidebar as, “The phrase ‘new normal’ is pretty creepy. Let’s talk about concerns with it, and what can be done to resist it.” It was sort of a way to criticize the measures being taken, and also a place to get emotional support for what we were all going through from a sympathetic group of people. In other words, it was built with good intentions.
Exploring the penthouse suite…
5 minute read
October 9, 2021, 10:00 AM
Since last October, whenever Elyse and I have traveled down to Augusta County, we’ve stayed at Hotel 24 South in downtown Staunton. If you’ve followed this site over the years, you might recognize the place. Under its original name, the Stonewall Jackson Hotel (the name was changed to Hotel 24 South in September 2020), I photographed the neon sign that used to be on the roof of the building back in 2007, and my sister had her wedding reception there back in 2010. The building dates back to 1924, and was renovated and expanded to its current form in 2005, restoring its original use as a hotel after having served as an elder care facility for a time.
However, during the 2005 renovation, one section of the building was skipped over: the penthouse suite. As I understand it, the penthouse suite was never available for rental to guests, but rather, was intended as the owner’s private residence. I was made aware of the penthouse’s existence by some friends of mine, and we located the door to access the space on our December trip (the primary focus of that trip was paying last respects to Staunton Mall). At that time, however, the entrance was locked, but we did learn that the penthouse space was excluded from the renovation due to lack of elevator access. On our next visit, in March, they were doing maintenance work on one of the hotel’s elevators (a mechanical room for the elevators is also up there), and as such, the door was open. So Elyse and I took a quick tour of the space before we went out for the day.
My impression of the space, based on the vintage architectural and decorative elements present there, is that it has not been used for anything resembling its intended purpose for a very long time, though it is not abandoned. Rather, it appears that the current hotel management uses the space for storage. The space does have modern ventilation, as evidenced by a modern air duct running through the hallway to the living room, and it did not smell old or musty.
Categories: Staunton