(juridical) advice

[1/12] from: hallvard:ystad:helpinhand at: 10-Jan-2003 14:00

Hei list, A friend of mine, with whom I discussed my distorter script, said with a laugh that an Osamalizer really would be a great thing. So I made one. http://oslorock.info/osamalize?url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/ The script changes pictures greater than 40x40 and inserts a few islamic sayings. Now the questions are: 1) May I use pictures from other poeple's servers by external linking? I.e. inside whitehouse.gov, there may be pictures from, e.g. lefthandcorner.wtal.de whan run through the osamalizer? Are there any legal issues here? 2) Is this a funny tool or is it merely offensive and inappropriate (both in itself and for rebol promotion)? Any thoughts appreciated. ~H

[2/12] from: ptretter:charter at: 10-Jan-2003 8:36

I actually find it offensive. I wouldn't have found it funny on Sept 12, 2001 the day after the events either. And that is exactly where I think this country (USA) - still is - in the day after. Until the war on terror is over you can probably understand that most Americans are living the day after. Your script might not be that bad but I don't think using Osamas pictures makes me smile at all. As my Marine Corps buddys say: IT'S GOD'S RESPONSIBILITY TO FORGIVE BIN LADEN... IT'S OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ARRANGE THE MEETING! United States Marine Corps Paul Tretter Veteran United States Marine Corps Operation Desert Shield/Storm Aug 90/Mar91 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hallvard Ystad" <[hallvard--ystad--helpinhand--com]> To: <[rebol-list--rebol--com]> Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 7:00 AM Subject: [REBOL] (juridical) advice Hei list, A friend of mine, with whom I discussed my distorter script, said with a laugh that an Osamalizer really would be a great thing. So I made one. http://oslorock.info/osamalize?url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/ The script changes pictures greater than 40x40 and inserts a few islamic sayings. Now the questions are: 1) May I use pictures from other poeple's servers by external linking? I.e. inside whitehouse.gov, there may be pictures from, e.g. lefthandcorner.wtal.de whan run through the osamalizer? Are there any legal issues here? 2) Is this a funny tool or is it merely offensive and inappropriate (both in itself and for rebol promotion)? Any thoughts appreciated. ~H

[3/12] from: fuka:fuxoft:cz at: 10-Jan-2003 17:14

Hallvard Ystad wrote:

> 2) Is this a funny tool or is it merely offensive and inappropriate > (both in itself and for rebol promotion)?

It greatly depends on your sense of humor. And I don't only mean if you are humorous or humorless but also what kind of humor do you actually find funny. Personally, I find it funny although I already saw some different scripts that did something pretty close to this script. In any case the result is controversial and I definitely don't recommend using it as a publicity for Rebol. You definittely wouldn't like someone to write to newspapers saying "I am war veteran, I lost my legs and arms for world peace and it's clear that if you use Rebol you are terrorist/communist/atheist/whatever..." -- Frantisek Fuka (yes, that IS my real name) (and it's pronounced "Fran-tjee-shek Foo-kah") ---------------------------------------------------- My E-mail: [fuka--fuxoft--cz] My Homepage: http://www.fuxoft.cz My ICQ: 2745855

[4/12] from: cal:prolific at: 10-Jan-2003 10:50

> 1) May I use pictures from other poeple's servers by external linking?

I.e. inside whitehouse.gov, there may be

> pictures from, e.g. lefthandcorner.wtal.de whan run through the

osamalizer? Are there any legal issues here? I'm not aware of any real legal issues, but please don't link directly to images on other people's sites without permission, as that often consumes scarce bandwidth and can sometime unintentionally bring down small site when they reach their bandwidth cap for the month. Although if you give credit to the source they usually won't mind too much.

> 2) Is this a funny tool or is it merely offensive and inappropriate (both

in itself and for rebol promotion)? Yes. It is funny AND it is inappropriate. I'm difficult to offend though, so my opinion probably doesn't count on this one... Cal Dixon

[5/12] from: hallvard:ystad:helpinhand at: 10-Jan-2003 20:25

Thanks for replies, list. I did suspect some people could find it offensive, and so, since confirmed, I'll turn the thing off. Dixit Paul Tretter (15.36 10.01.2003):

>IT'S GOD'S RESPONSIBILITY TO FORGIVE BIN LADEN... >IT'S OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ARRANGE THE MEETING! > United States Marine Corps

As a curiousity, I'll ad that I find this Marine quote a bit over the line... Anyway, thanks for sharing your opinions, folks. ~H

[6/12] from: chalz:earthlink at: 10-Jan-2003 15:18

I might find it hysterical if it would work. I tried that link, and it takes me to http://helpinhand.com/distort?f=100&url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/ I thought maybe it was mutating the picture of the two guys in the upper right, but I guess not. My thought on the 'offensive' question is this: Most people (at least in the US) seem more concerned about what's going to offend someone else, and take offense at /that/, whether or not they believe it or it offends them at all. Too many people are concerned at, "Oh, but this might offend <group>, and that's bad!!!!" without being a member of <group>, or even knowing anyone in <group>, or ever hearing anything from a member of <group> about offense. Of course, you could warn people, "Don't use this if you're offended." However, people are so retarded that they WILL use/view it, specifically because it DOES offend them, just so they have something to gripe about. Personally, I wana see it. I like a good laugh. Here's to schadenfreud!! --Charles **** Hei list, A friend of mine, with whom I discussed my distorter script, said with a laugh that an Osamalizer really would be a great thing. So I made one. http://oslorock.info/osamalize?url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/ The script changes pictures greater than 40x40 and inserts a few islamic sayings. Now the questions are: 1) May I use pictures from other poeple's servers by external linking? I.e. inside whitehouse.gov, there may be pictures from, e.g. lefthandcorner.wtal.de whan run through the osamalizer? Are there any legal issues here? 2) Is this a funny tool or is it merely offensive and inappropriate (both in itself and for rebol promotion)? Any thoughts appreciated. ~H

[7/12] from: hallvard:ystad:helpinhand at: 10-Jan-2003 20:47

Dixit Cal (19.50 10.01.2003):

>I'm not aware of any real legal issues, but please don't link directly to >images on other people's sites without permission, as that often consumes >scarce bandwidth and can sometime unintentionally bring down small site when >they reach their bandwidth cap for the month. Although if you give credit >to the source they usually won't mind too much.

Well, I wouldn't imagine the load to ever be great enough to consume some site's complete bandwith limit. I was wondering, (for the Distorter, since I'm taking the osamalizer off the air), about creating a hash! of picture URLs to choose from, so that I could add a picture distortion option to the distorter script. I could always insert some attribute in the <img> tag to tell that the script got the picture from somewhere... Hm... But I still get the feeling of... stealing... ~H

[8/12] from: laurent:giroud:libertysurf at: 10-Jan-2003 22:12

It is quite nice ! I think you should try to insert the islamic sayings only at certain places in sentences in order to make them appear as if they were the original message. Your original distorter is really funny because it replaces words with another one spelling quite like it but with a completely different meaning. It would be nice to acheive the same with those small sentences :) And regarding potentially offended people, remember that you do not force anyone of them to use the Osamalizer. Moreover I don't think that making fun of Osama B.L. is something that should be taken so seriously, even in the US the first of all liberties is free speech and this obviously includes humor sites such as yours. As for Rebol promotion, well, you'd better ask RebolTech to make sure this doesn't offend them first ;) Regards, Laurent Friday, January 10, 2003, 2:00:09 PM, Hallvard Ystad wrote :

[9/12] from: carl:cybercraft at: 11-Jan-2003 14:10

On 11-Jan-03, Hallvard Ystad wrote:

> Thanks for replies, list. > I did suspect some people could find it offensive, and so, since > confirmed, I'll turn the thing off.

And now I'm offended because I didn't get the chance to see if I was offended or not!!! -- Carl Read

[10/12] from: hallvard:ystad:helpinhand at: 11-Jan-2003 13:48

Dixit Carl Read (02.10 11.01.2003):

>And now I'm offended because I didn't get the chance to see if I was >offended or not!!!

Dixit Charles (21.18 10.01.2003):

>I might find it hysterical if it would work. >[...] >Personally, I wana see it. I like a good laugh. Here's to schadenfreud!!

Don't worry, guys, you can still access the script. It's on the helpinhand.com server, in the cgi-bin directory. The script name is osamalize.r. Add parameters like f=100 ; sets frequency to 100%, i.e. places some islamic saying after each and every full stop ponctuation (default frequency is 66, so that the script will add something if frequency > random 100) url=channels.netscape.com/ns/pf/content.jsp?file=/pf/pm/fte.jsp/ ; the url that you'd like to osamalize. I won't give a URL, since this ends up on escribe, accessible for bots. And the script won't be there forever. Dixit Laurent Giroud (22.12 10.01.2003):

>Your original distorter is really funny because it replaces >words with another one spelling quite like it but with a completely >different meaning.

If you got words with spelling quite like, that's pure luck. I pick a word from (presumably) the same word class like this: new-word: pick get word-class random length? get word-class But here's a feature for the future: pick=similar This parameter sent to the script should make sure similar words are picked, e.g. words with at least the three first letters identical to those in the original word, or something like that. Good idea, Laurent!

>And regarding potentially offended people, remember that you do not >force anyone of them to use the Osamalizer.

I know, but as Charles pointed out, people who might be offended are also attracted.

>Moreover I don't think that making fun of Osama B.L. is something that >should be taken so seriously, even in the US the first of all liberties >is free speech and this obviously includes humor sites such as yours.

I agree. But this is also a question about not getting too much hate-mail etc. I think I posted a link to the isgay site before. They have a section of hate mail which is quite funny: http://www.isgay.com/hatemail.php (watch out for pop-ups!). I'd rather like to avoid that. And Laurent: you wouldn't happen to know about some public domain french dico that I could use for a french version of the distorter, would you? ~H

[11/12] from: laurent::giroud::libertysurf::fr at: 11-Jan-2003 14:11

> [snip] > But here's a feature for the future: > > pick=similar > > This parameter sent to the script should make sure similar words are picked, e.g. words with at least the three first letters identical to those in the original word, or something like that. Good > idea, Laurent!

> [snip] > And Laurent: you wouldn't happen to know about some public domain french dico that I could use for a french version of the distorter, would you?

I'm not an expert at all but would'nt the (i)spell program dictionaries present in all Linux distributions fit your needs ? It seems to me that they have a french one too. Regards, Laurent

[12/12] from: anton:lexicon at: 12-Jan-2003 15:59

Have you thought about using a thesaurus? You could replace words with similar meanings, so the sentence still kind of makes sense. Thesauruses list synonyms to each word, but there is another "anti-thesaurus", which lists antonyms - words which have the opposite meaning of a word. I forget the name of this book... Maybe you could use that. Also, for a more subtle approach, you could simply negate the meaning of some sentences, by, for example, swapping "is" <-> "is not" etc. Anton.