::~moth @ vox~::

While I may still pop in and post on my vox blog from time to time, my more permanent space is here:

http://www.amiegillingham.com

Hope to see y'all there! And I promise I'll try to blog more regularly.

IMG_8659.JPG
Originally uploaded by ndrake

With Abbey looking this happy to celebrate her cousin's 4th birthday, I can only imagine her grin when it's her turn next month.

I joined Vox back in 2006 on a whim when it was still in Beta. Mostly because I like playing with new toys, and the user interface is simply gorgeous. I moved my "official" presence here and kept my ancient LJ account for blathering about fandom and for my parenting communites in which I've been active since Abbey was born.

But here's the problem; Vox doesn't really work well as a business presence for me personally. Maybe it would if EBSQ had an extension of our community here. But even then, I am thinking of moving on to less community-oriented pastures. Maybe wordpress. Despite its communal nature and some lovely people on my flist, I just don't feel terribly connected here, which of course, makes it less likely that I am going to spend time blogging here.  The place where I am chit-chatty is LJ. And despite the age of my blog, I don't want that to be my public face for me and my business. I don't think I feel comfortable having that be here, either.

I don't know. I really don't know.

While it looked iffy at times, we did in fact survive 4 holiday parties, including one of my own yesterday, plus hosting a house guest, in 3 days. While there is still cleaning to do, there is no more cooking, no more wrapping, no more running amok, or timing of naps, nor dressing up two resistant children. Just blissful rest over a cup of cocoa and leisurely reading my feeds. Ah, Boxing Day, my favourite day of the holiday season.

Despite my obvious fatigue, we did have a ton of fun. The 23rd was spent at my mother in law's. Christmas Eve was split between my husband's aunt's house (and at least 40 of Bill's relatives!) and my mom's, followed by a rather magical Midnight Mass. Bill stayed home with the sleeping children and wrapped the pressies while I was at church with my grandmother. So I was actually able to be in bed by 3am, and slept until nearly 9am! Abbey was up by 10, Liam up by 11, and company here by 1.  

The menu for our brunch changed a bit since we had forgotten a few needed items on our last store jaunt. We ended up having:

• haluski
• kielbasi (made by my gram)
• sweet potatoes (also made by my gram)
• sauteed mushrooms with garlic
• french toast from fresh baked bread (made by Bill)
• chocolate chip pancakes (also made by Bill)
• traditional and chocolate croissants
• fruit salad
• sausage
• clementines
• baguettes
• panetone
• chocolate mascarpone cheesecake with raspberry coulis
• assorted cookies and pumpkin chocolate chip bread
• mulled cider

so as you can see, it was a bit of a hodge podge, but well received.

And now, time to rest, then get caught up on some work. It's funny how work feels restful after all that, lol!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (or insert your holiday of choice here____.)

Cheers! 

If you're still doing your holiday baking and want something non-fussy, easy to make, yet elegant, I *highly* recommend these. In my case, I used Bill's espresso instead of  the called-for medium roast since the beans were already in the hopper for our burr grinder. It's a fairly grown-up cookie, and amazing dunked in a hot cuppa.  

What are YOU baking this year?

Yes, it's December and I have been a-rushing to complete things that have been owed throughout the year. My dear friend Alissa posed some meme questions to me right before I went out to San Francisco earlier year, and I didn't have time to do them at the time, and the poor things have been collecting dust in my inbox, waiting to be answered. Well, since I am procrastinating from finishing my Christmas cards, I might as well do something quasi-useful with that time, lol. So this one's for you, Alissa!

Those of you who know me know that I'm not just an artist; I'm also a huge tech geek. And so it's with great interest (and concern) that I've been watching the most recent internet kerfuffle at the convergence of my two areas of interest.  You may not be aware of the latest viral video that is the darling of the same tech community it parodies, "Look, It's Another Bubble" by The Richter Scales. At the heart of this controversy is a photographer, Lane Hartwell,  who found out that yet another one of her photographs was used without her permission in this beloved video. Like many of you might have been in her place, she was pissed that her copyrighted work was used both without permission or attribution.

Yes, it was a good video. I personally passed it around to a lot of like-minded friends before this whole thing blew up. And I can understand that people who enjoyed this video are mad at the photographer for not just giving her blessing after the fact and spoiling everyone's fun. But now this woman is being called, among other things, "a whiny bitch" for protecting her copyright and being a spoil sport, and some claim she's impeding on The Richter Scales rights to use the piece in question because the end result is a parody. People have made fun of  the quality of her work, and the quality of her character, saying she's money grubbing and wants a piece of the viral pie, or is taking advantage of all of the publicity she's receiving for having this video taken down all over the net while she works things out with the other party. It's personally disheartening to see an artist villified by a community of which I am normally proud to be a part. 

So let me put this to you: if this was your photograph being used in this video, how would you react? Would you be thrilled to have your work (sans attribution) appear in a video gone viral? Or would you, like Lane, be pissed that your rights were being infringed upon and try to do something about it? Was the usage of Lane's photograph fair use, much as parts and pieces are used in a collage, for example?

For further context:

From the photographer in question: http://flickr.com/photos/fetching/2090802706/
From the infringing party: http://www.richterscales.com/blog/
A representative post from the tech community: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/15/misunderstanding-copyright-law-and-ruining-everyones-fun/

We greatly welcome you thoughts on this issue. And if copyright issues are important to you, please pass this on!
 

So--last year I thought it was important to go to LED lights. We bought blue for the outside (to match some novelty blue & white snowflake lights that my husband and brother could never manage to hang up) and white for the inside, which resulted in a glowing fluorescent white Christmas tree. This year I resolved to do better. I searched online, found a place that I thought had a decent selection, and ordered red lights for outside, and something called antique candlelight (which looked online like conventional white lights) for the tree inside. The company I ordered it from had a special where you can pay $20 extra for your items to ship the same day if you order before 4pm pacific. Well, I put in my order at 8:30 am pacific and felt confident all would be well. Cut to mid-afternoon the next day and I get an email from the company saying that the reds are sold out, what else would I like? First, I'm pissed because, hello, shouldn't my order have shipped already? And secondly, I had to revise my entire outside decorating plans.  I did remind them of the extra fee i paid for them to ship the same day and asked for a refund since that obviously hadn't happened. And we went back and forth via email, with them going on about how time sensitive it was, so I finally called them (long distance since there was no 800 number) and they put me on hold for close to half an hour. We finally settled on them sending me their last 12 antique candlelight (I had originally ordered 16 sets total). Well, it's 2 weeks later, they finally showed up, and they're orange. Frakkin. Orange. Christmas. Lights. As in, more appropriate if we actually cared to decorate for Halloween. So, I grabbed the packing slip to see about returning them. First, I have to notify them before I am allowed to return them. Secondly, I have to prepay shipping to return (expected, but still a hassle). Thirdly, I have to pay them a 15% (not dollars, PERCENT) restocking charge for my $200 light order for the privilege of sending the damned things back at a time of year when they're flying off the shelves (remember, I got the last 12 sets)

I. Am. Livid.

Christmas Treasures of Blue River, OR? You guys SUCK.

(if you scroll way down on the linked page above, you'll see their demonstration of the differences between pure white, warm white, and antique candlelight. Let's just say that the picture was VERY deceiving. I expected yellowy, not outright ORANGE) 

Tonight is the finals for Dancing with the Stars. Yeah, I've admitted before I love it, so stop laughing. It's also Monday Night Football with the Steelers, which is broadcast locally on our ABC affiliate so the finals have been pre-empted. AND because there's been lightning, the teams haven't even done their warm ups yet, so the game has been delayed. So--there's no game to show AND we still don't get to see DWTS. If Steeler football wasn't a religion in this household (and if my girl Sabrina was actually in the finals) you'd better believe I'd be much more miffed than I am now. Right now, I am just laughing my arse off at the irony.

Go Mel & Maks!

I am posting this on behalf of twitter friend (and fellow nuring mom) Laura Fitton :

You as a journalist should be aware of this situation with Facebook.

Facebook reportedly banned/censored profile photos of nursing mothers on the grounds that they are obscene:

-The Age (Australian Newspaper) report dated Sept. 7th (note, topless ads are referred to even back then) http://urltea.com/25xw -Facebook Group (yeah, ironic, I know) that is petition against Facebook for banning nursing photos: http://snipurl.com/1u18x As of the other day, this group has 34,264 members -Blog post dated Sept. 12 about the situation: http://urltea.com/25xv

This week a prominent Boston-area blogger named Chris Brogan was served, and reported on his blog and on twitter, ads for a sex video chat service. The ad was a photo of a topless woman provocatively posed -Blog post documenting topless ads served to Facebook business user:
http://tinyurl.com/2gsc29

In addition to the inconsistency of these actions/policies, having topless ads on a "business-oriented" social network is a serious liability for Facebook.

Another piece of the puzzle is that analysis of Facebook's own targeted advertising data, 2/3 of their use is coming from women.
Interesting they would treat breasts so badly, considering this.
http://www.profy.com/2007/11/23/women-growing-to-become-great-majority-on-the-social-web/

To editorialize: Pretty egregious, and I am amazed they haven't been called on it or pressed to respond. I think the general public would be kind of horrified by this. I think the situation is outrageous and Facebook should immediately, and loudly, address it, fix it, and apologize.

Thanks for any ideas or follow-up you wish to share.

With regards,
Laura Fitton
(Social Media Consultant and nursing mother)

www.pistachioconsulting.com
www.brainsieve.com
www.twitter.com/pistachio