nephihaha

Many people on here are normalising the idea of unpaid work. Imagine doing so while having a debt agency after you. It is a luxury to those who have the time and money to do so.

As I have said elsewhere, I know lesser known writers who have released their book for free on Kindle and gained nothing in return. (No reviews but certainly downloads.) All that resulted in was someone getting a free book. It is not a pattern to be encouraged.

"Most people like things that are free. Obviously. I myself make good use of my library card."

Libraries are not free. They're paid for out of taxes, and my local council is very forceful in collecting them. Libraries tend to buy most of their books (and pay lending fees to the authors most of the time). Despite attempts to turn libraries into voluntary services, many public libraries still have paid staff.

"That sucks. But is besides the point. The key is consent. You didn't consent to that. The author of this book chose to make it freely available. Just like you are making your comments on hn freely available. its all about choice."

No, it's not just about consent but the affect on others. Let's say we have ten bands, and seven of them tell bars they're willing to play for nothing... That means the other three are unlikely to get paid work as a result. If people keep handing out free hot dogs, that means the hot dog seller down the road isn't going to sell any.

Why are people so disgusted at my proposal that people are paid for work? Even Marxist-orientated societies like the USSR and Cuba pay/paid people (including writers!) for their work.

It is easy to do unpaid work when you have money already and many don't. I'm beginning to think I'm talking to a bunch of rich kids here.

"Nobody "pocketed it". They keep a reserve for unexpected expenses or if fundraising goes poorly. There are plenty of things you can fault the Wikimedia Foundation for, but this seems like a stupid one. Obviously they are going to keep some money in the bank, just in case something unexpected happens."

I edited Wikipedia for fifteen years. Despite some deletions, there are still thousands upon thousands of my words up there, and dozens of articles which I started. I never got paid anything for it, in fact I constantly had to deal with obnoxious behaviour on there from administrators who kept enshittifying content and leaving me rude messages. That's what destroyed my good will. Only a handful of admin ever bothered to thank me for it (and yes I did have some medals/badges).

So Wikipedia and Wikimedia have plenty of my work, and other people's, and are making money off it, but most of the editors aren't. (Same with IMDB. Plenty of my work on there. Nothing to show for it, and they advertise on there.) Wikimedia is maybe not even the main profiteer off it, since AI is quite clearly raiding it for content and so are various businesses.

There is a vast difference between helping an elderly neighbour mow their lawn and dumping lots of free content online. I've been running a writing group for four years now. I'm not paid to do that, and I set it up myself, but it is not putting someone else out of a job, and we support a small business. It also helps the writers, and some of our number have been published and are making sales as a result of being in the group.

It is self-centred to expect everyone to work for you for free. That is why we now have AI destroying creative industries, because it has become normalised not to pay people for using their content.

In parts of Africa the local textile and clothing industries have been destroyed by large amounts of free clothing being offloaded onto them by the developed world. This has been done with good intent, but it means that Africans have been put out of work, and so that they cannot sell their clothes on the international market. If those areas could develop a clothing industry it would bring much needed money into their economy and make them less dependent on onerous bank loans.

"were you under the impression that creatives were well paid before the internet?"

Yes, they were being better paid. Musicians had unions for one. Spotify and YouTube do not pay fair rates for their music, yet rake in from advertising. Old radio stations paid better.

This has been a problem in bars and venues. They tell lies like 'it will look good on your CV/resumé" or "it will get you attention". But if many of them are willing do it unpaid, it means a lot of the pubs won't pay anyone to play.

I'm surprised about the Snares. They are near enough to South Island that I could see them being a shipping hazard.

Yes, I know that technique. I also know people who go for free books exclusively on Kindle. They don't want to pay for anything. That isn't helpful to people who are selling books in order to help support themselves and undermines the market for new book sales.

I know writers who tried giving their book away for free, and got almost no sales or good reviews afterwards. They aren't all selling terrible books either.

Would you seriously ask a taxi driver to give you free rides before they got paid? Or would you ask a teacher to work for six months unpaid in order to get a couple of years work later on?

I know this mentality is encouraged in some places with interns, but it is a luxury of people who can already support themselves.

"Screw that. People should be able to do whatever they want with their own work. That is what it means to own something."

That undermines other novelists who are in most cases making barely any money to begin with. I know people who specifically go for free books in preference to ones they have to pay for.

I submitted an article to a magazine some years ago, which I had spent WEEKS researching. They turned it down and it mysteriously popped up on a blog, uncredited, and only lightly rewritten. I had to threaten legal action. But it was sickening given how much work I had put into it. I am not wealthy, in fact I struggle to pay my life expenses. This year was the first time I was able to take a holiday away from home in several years.

"Are you also opposed to open source software?"

I think people should be paid for work. We have it arse backwards in this society. Parasitic megacorporations get paid exorbitant amounts of money for crappy products through their cartels, and barely pay any tax... Whereas other people are expected to work for nothing. Being able to work for free means that you have the time and money to do so. But unfortunately it means that people expect other people's labour to be for free even though that is not how the economy works.

Companies like Wikimedia, Duolingo, IMDB, social media and so on, are taking unpaid labour and making money off it. Wikimedia Wikimedia got $150M in donations during July 1, 2020—June 30, 2021. 67M wen on salaries, with 9M of it going to management, and apparently pocketed 50M. Needless to say, the bulk of Wikimedia's labour never sees a bolt in compensation.

Do you tell your plumber or your electrician that they are self-centred when they come around asking to be paid? You might laugh, but that happens. I knew a builder a few years ago who only had half his bill paid, with the result he lost thousands on materials he had bought. It would have cost him a pretty penny going down the legal route. Rich people are often the worst for paying up. Novelists are not paid by the hour and many have to take on other jobs in order to support themselves.

Donna Tartt takes about ten years to write a novel. Some writers take a month or two. It is not an easy task, and very few people can pull it off, let alone in a short time. The internet is full of free music, art and writing, with the result that creative people struggle to support themselves, because they are being undercut, and professional work is being converted into a hobby. The tax authorities, electricity companies, and supermarkets are not interested in whether you are self-centred or not as you put it. They want to be paid. (If you are on unemployment benefit while writing the book, they will demand that you look for other work during that time... Or claim you are able to work.)

Novelists should not be giving their work away for free like that. AI is bad enough, but writing a novel (even a bad one) is hard work. It just makes it harder for novelists to make a living.

They're on rivers, inland seas and large lakes. Russia has a lot because it is heavily reliant on waterways.

They are not in a busy part of the ocean, but I suppose it is to warn people away. That archipelago is not fully charted, so it is probably a good idea to keep away from much of its coast. Probably dozens of uncharted reefs.

It jumped around when I tried to use it on a mobile phone. I was surprised how few Greenland has.

I'm fairly sure that there are more in outlying islands of New Zealand. The Chatham Islands seem well marked but there are none marked on Stewart Island or the Snares.

Do you mean sea coast? Quite a few larger lakes and rivers have them.

Yes. I've noticed in chain coffee shops in the UK. Never heard of it until recently. I'm sure it will be something else soon.

It's the in thing just now for whatever reason. I see all the chain coffee shops are offering it. Next year it will be something else.

Unfortunately it's not just online. I meet people regularly who no longer read and some who never started. They're missing out. The book exercises the mind in a way that television doesn't.

Webster is old Scots for a weaver.

Not so sure about that. A liver can take a heck of a beating, but speak to enough (recovering) alcoholics and you'll find plenty that have managed to knacker their livers.

Ethiopia was Christian before a lot of northern Europe was...

Ethiopia has a brief Italian intervention but did not form part of a European empire. In fact, before the Communists got in under Mengistu, it was ruled by an Emperor

QR Codes were heavily promoted during the global lockdown.

In practice it is murkier. On one article, I see an editor has removed some material for not having enough references, and yet on the same article he has removed other material for being "ref-bombed" as he puts it, i.e. having too many references.

Extremely interesting page, thank you, am reading through it.

It's amazing what can live where. There are microbes a mile down and a mile up, in near boiling water and in subzero conditions.

Well, the Open Democracy blog is part of the same group and so are a few other things with the same prefix. Always interesting where the main money comes from.

I doubt the difference is much noticed in some quarters. I'm not a fan of the term Anglo-Saxon. I do have some Anglo-Saxon ancestry way back but some of my ancestors are from places they never reached.

In Australia they use Anglo-Celtic, which is slightly better.

What is, and isn't, original research is quite often subjective.

Is the OpenID Foundation connected to the Open Society group?

I'm not from the USA so don't understand their rules, but Hispanic seems to mean "that person over there speaking Spanish" or a Latin American (non-Brazilian). It seems to exclude actual Spanish and Filipinos (even though many have Spanish sounding names), and probably people from Spanish speaking Africa.

I think you misunderstand the purpose of giving soldiers land to farm on. It was normally in conquered territories, so it meant that you had men in those territories who had military experience and were ostensibly loyal. Not just a reward, but pragmatism.

Hispanic is mainly a linguistic catch all for most Latin Americans.

The USA holds to the one drop theory with African ancestry, i.e. any recent African ancestors at all and you're black.

And the reverse with Native Americans, since you have to be practically full blooded to be considered one by some people.

For the purposes of this post, I'm concentrating mainly on English language style, and not the quality of the translation from the original languages. The KJV, though outdated, has good turns of phrase. Many modern translations are lacking when it comes to the beauty of the English. A decent translation stands up as literature in its own right.

* New Living Translation (NLT): My main one nowadays. This one is not for everyone, but I find it very readable and was recommended it online. My one criticism is that the style is a bit too American. It works on a thought for thought basis.

* New English Bible (NEB): I have something of a soft spot for this one. It has the opposite problem to the NLT in that its style is sometimes too British. Nonetheless I always liked its text lay out and style. Sadly it got superseded by the Revised English Bible which is not so good. I mostly come across it second hand.

* New King James Version (NKJV): this one at least retains some of the literary qualities of the KJV while making the text more accessible to a modern audience. It does have some problems (mostly those that afflict other modern Bible versions).

The International Standard Version is online only, but its range of sources has piqued my interest as a study Bible, but its readability seems to vary. I hope it comes out in print.

I have Lorimer's New Testament in Scots. I find it a bit uneven. I know folk who love it.

As for BAD Bible versions, I'd out the following on the naughty stool. The Scholars' Version is gospels only, but is horrendous to read (its version of the Beatitudes says "congratulations to the..." as if they'd won Reader's Digest Prize Draw.) The New World Translation is the Jehovah's Witness version and had clunky prose, making it extremely unpleasurable to read. The Good News Bible is not as annoying as the other two but its English is oversimplified and directed at children and learners. The Message goes for colloquial English and doesn't always work. The Conservative Bible, like NIV and NSRVue allows its political biases in.