Questions you want answered.

Veloxi wrote:

Hey guys, how are you? I'm writing because I'm have a bit of a quandary and could use some advice, if you all don't mind. Some background might be needed first.

Back in April of this year, a small e-publication I had previously written for tasked me with writing two game reviews -- one covering a game I'd already written about on my blog, and one I hadn't -- and laid out a sum for each article. I completed the articles ahead of schedule and sent them off.

In May, not having heard anything, I emailed my contact to see what was going on, and was told the publication of the magazine would be delayed. I accepted it and continued waiting.

In late July, I saw a tweet saying they were about to publish the actual magazine which supposedly had my articles in it, so I wrote and inquired again about the articles again, as well as payment. I was told they only used one of my articles in the magazine -- to accommodate more features -- but would use the other one on their blog. Fine, I said, and waited some more.

Last week, noticing the magazine had been published, I emailed my contact again to inquire about payment and such. It's been over a week and I've heard no reply. I'm pretty fed up at this point.

My question, after all that, is would it be okay if I tweaked one of the reviews I wrote for them and repost it on my own blog, since they are my words and I've yet to receive payment for them? Since I doubt I'll ever be paid at this point, I'd like to do SOMETHING with my own content instead, you know?

Thanks in advance for any advice y'all can provide. :)

I don't suppose that the writing business has anything akin to The Construction Lien Act does it?

For me, generally, if it's not a repeat client, they don't get product from me until the cheque is handed over. Usually at the same meeting. I'll go there and deliver in person at my expense to make sure that the cheque changes hands.

In the case of work done, and unpaid, in my industry you can lien the property and it stops legal actions from happening related to the property. A subcontractor can put a lien on a property if he's not paid for the work he did. Then the owners can't get occupancy permits, sell the property, create easments, subdivide, etc... until the lien is lifted.

I suppose your only course is to sue, which just loses you money?
Talk to your lawyer. I would make sure that I sent written request for payment. Send written notification that they're using your material without paying. Hopefully you had a contract? or at least a signed fee proposal? Get as much due process in paper as you can before you do something like post it on your own.

And ignore my advice. I'm not american, nor do I work in the writing industry. Ask the folks here. I do however work as a small business with one off creative product on a small scale that makes legal action for past due accounts not exactly cost effective.

Ghostship wrote:

We don't see 100 year old glass flow. We can see the results after it's happened.

This doesn't actually answer your question, but the "glass flows over long time-spans" thing is actually a myth: the unevenness in old windows comes from the production process and is as likely to be at the top of the window as it is at the bottom. They looked like that when they were installed.

Ghostship wrote:

Is there any reading you could recommend on "Time Lapse" or "bullet time" in a more real scientific sense?

Like my hippie stoner/ pseudo intellectual type thought:

We have a very limited ability to perceive things significantly outside of our scale of time. We don't see trees grow. We don't see 100 year old glass flow. We can see the results after it's happened.

If "something" had a brain which worked like our computers and processed things in millions, or billions of operations per second, we would seem static to them.
There could be "things" surrounding us with operate on such a vastly different scale of time that we don't notice, nor do "they" notice that we're in the same physical space.

More interesting, I think, is why 24-25 Hz is the lowest tone a human ear can process as a tone and is also the slowest framerate at which an image appears smooth.

Hey McIrishJihad and Ghostship, thanks for the advice. The amount in question isn't worth going to a lawyer over (it's less than $100), but it's the principal of the thing. Also, I'm just kinda upset. I looked through my notes and this was in one of the emails I received about it.

Work that is not of a publishable standard or that just plain rubbish will not be paid for at the full rate. Work that is delivered ridiculously late without previously agreeing a deadline will see a reduction in the fee. A kill fee of 50% off the original commissioned fee applies to work that is not published. We reserve the right not to publish as a last resort. name withheld rights to all contribution are Worldwide, Universal and Inter Dimensional.

My work isn't rubbish, and was delivered before the deadline. I haven't, however, signed anything, if that helps.

Well, if those are their submission guidelines, I'd say that you have enough of a paper trail to at least take them to small claims.

You have the paper trail stating the deadline they desired the work to be completed under, documentation that the work was delivered by that time frame (email submission times), and since both pieces were published that would mean that the work was "not in a non-publishable or rubbish" state.

They kind of screw themselves by not defining the use of the word "publish", so in this case there is no distinction between online and print.

Again, IANAL, but it sounds like you could at least go after them for damages in small claims, and depending on the court probably get some multiplier of "agreed-upon fees" plus court costs.

In all seriousness, because of the complete lack of legalese in that agreement (that last statement makes absolutely no sense), I'd say it would serve them right to get hit with a small claims case. It'll either break them completely, and get them to rethink their business model and smarten up.

Nah, I don't wanna take 'em to court over what is ultimately $50, I just want to use my own article on my blog since I was never paid for it.

Veloxi wrote:

Nah, I don't wanna take 'em to court over what is ultimately $50, I just want to use my own article on my blog since I was never paid for it.

Again, not a lawyer, but if you didn't sign anything and they're not paying...I'd do it.

Maq wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

Is there any reading you could recommend on "Time Lapse" or "bullet time" in a more real scientific sense?

Like my hippie stoner/ pseudo intellectual type thought:

We have a very limited ability to perceive things significantly outside of our scale of time. We don't see trees grow. We don't see 100 year old glass flow. We can see the results after it's happened.

If "something" had a brain which worked like our computers and processed things in millions, or billions of operations per second, we would seem static to them.
There could be "things" surrounding us with operate on such a vastly different scale of time that we don't notice, nor do "they" notice that we're in the same physical space.

More interesting, I think, is why 24-25 Hz is the lowest tone a human ear can process as a tone and is also the slowest framerate at which an image appears smooth.

I would guess that it's a coincidence, unless there's some universal constant that applies to both light and sound.
We evolved to hear and see what we had to. Sound is the easy one. Nothing making noise at a frequency below that range ever had a significant effect on human populations; nor did we depend on detecting those things for food.

Light? Who knows. I can't think of any light in nature that works like animation. Strobing light is a man-made invention, as far as I know.

Veloxi wrote:

Nah, I don't wanna take 'em to court over what is ultimately $50, I just want to use my own article on my blog since I was never paid for it.

Have you pestered them yet?
Have they said outright that you're not going to be paid?

The connection between Accounts Recievable and other departments is sometimes broken. Talk to your contact first, then call Accounts Recievable directly after.

I also write administration fees into my contracts. I'll mark up invoices more than 30 days past due by 2.5%.

Do they have a written invoice?

Are they operating on Net 60? Waiting 60 days to get paid isn't unusual for me, even when I have 30 written into the contract.

It ultimately comes down to the release you signed, if at all, and the contract, if at all.

If we are talking 50 bucks, Yeah it is not worth pursuit in court as filing fees alone will cost more than that. If they get success/a lot of money in printing the article (doubtful) there are other remedies-unjust enrichment, conversion, etc.

If you were under contract or signed a release that is anything like a typical writing contract, reposting the work could lead to a heap of trouble. At the very least DMCA notices, or something worse. Under a contract or release, I am betting you agreed that the writing was a work for hire, which means the article belongs to them, even if you did the work.

If this was more casual, and you never had a release or contract relationship before. I say go ahead, but don't be shocked it you get a scare letter at some point.

None of this can constitute legal advice until after April 2014.

Ghostship wrote:
Maq wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

Is there any reading you could recommend on "Time Lapse" or "bullet time" in a more real scientific sense?

Like my hippie stoner/ pseudo intellectual type thought:

We have a very limited ability to perceive things significantly outside of our scale of time. We don't see trees grow. We don't see 100 year old glass flow. We can see the results after it's happened.

If "something" had a brain which worked like our computers and processed things in millions, or billions of operations per second, we would seem static to them.
There could be "things" surrounding us with operate on such a vastly different scale of time that we don't notice, nor do "they" notice that we're in the same physical space.

More interesting, I think, is why 24-25 Hz is the lowest tone a human ear can process as a tone and is also the slowest framerate at which an image appears smooth.

I would guess that it's a coincidence, unless there's some universal constant that applies to both light and sound.
We evolved to hear and see what we had to. Sound is the easy one. Nothing making noise at a frequency below that range ever had a significant effect on human populations; nor did we depend on detecting those things for food.

Light? Who knows. I can't think of any light in nature that works like animation. Strobing light is a man-made invention, as far as I know.

25Hz is the bus speed of the human nervous system.

Something work related for me. At Penguincon I found out that somehow, and I am blaming auto complete, I managed to e-mail some confidential information to one of Oilypenguin's friends. Fortunately it was a very rough draft of what I was working on (and was called unusable to some of my testers). His Friend is Matt J and I wanted to send my work to Matt C.

At my last firm, Outlook had auto complete disabled to prevent these things from happening.

Is there a way to disable autocomplete in Gmail? Or should I just run Thunderbird?

What's going on with the dA homepage? If you hold a cursor over an image for a second, some images collapse and fall apart and others don't. It's clearly intentional. Eh?

Maq wrote:
Ghostship wrote:
Maq wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

Is there any reading you could recommend on "Time Lapse" or "bullet time" in a more real scientific sense?

Like my hippie stoner/ pseudo intellectual type thought:

We have a very limited ability to perceive things significantly outside of our scale of time. We don't see trees grow. We don't see 100 year old glass flow. We can see the results after it's happened.

If "something" had a brain which worked like our computers and processed things in millions, or billions of operations per second, we would seem static to them.
There could be "things" surrounding us with operate on such a vastly different scale of time that we don't notice, nor do "they" notice that we're in the same physical space.

More interesting, I think, is why 24-25 Hz is the lowest tone a human ear can process as a tone and is also the slowest framerate at which an image appears smooth.

I would guess that it's a coincidence, unless there's some universal constant that applies to both light and sound.
We evolved to hear and see what we had to. Sound is the easy one. Nothing making noise at a frequency below that range ever had a significant effect on human populations; nor did we depend on detecting those things for food.

Light? Who knows. I can't think of any light in nature that works like animation. Strobing light is a man-made invention, as far as I know.

25Hz is the bus speed of the human nervous system.

No wonder robots have such an easy time of it when it comes to conquering and enslaving us meatsacks!

KingGorilla: I don't know the answer to that, but would it get around the issue to start typing the last name in the field instead of the first?

Yeah, nothing was ever signed, it was all just through email:

"Hey, wanna write these articles?" they asked.

"Sure!" I said.

"Okay, here's how much we'll pay you and when it's due." they said.

"Alright" I replied, and proceeded to deliver the articles on time.

I think the effort warrants payment. It's not a big company or anything, it's just one or two guys I think, but still, I don't feel like I'm being treated fairly.

Have you seen Mike Monteiro's "f*ck You, Pay me" video?

Ghostship wrote:

Is there any reading you could recommend on "Time Lapse" or "bullet time" in a more real scientific sense?

Like my hippie stoner/ pseudo intellectual type thought:

We have a very limited ability to perceive things significantly outside of our scale of time. We don't see trees grow. We don't see 100 year old glass flow. We can see the results after it's happened.

If "something" had a brain which worked like our computers and processed things in millions, or billions of operations per second, we would seem static to them.
There could be "things" surrounding us with operate on such a vastly different scale of time that we don't notice, nor do "they" notice that we're in the same physical space.

Or if "they" exist elsewhere and we're observing for communication, we don't notice theirs because it's happening, so out of whack with what we normally perceive.

Would be some interesting reading if you've encountered something that you could recommend.
Bullet time has been a popular game theme for a long time. I was just wondering if maybe it came from a real theory.

Might not be what you're looking for, but have a read of Iain M. Banks' novel The Algebraist. It's sci-fi of the highest caliber, and deals largely with The Dwellers, a species that exist on a much slower timescale than humans. Part of the story revolves around the Slow Seers, a group of humans who use technology to interact with the Dwellers by 'slowing' their own existence so they can operate on the same timescale.

Alternatively, ignore what I've written there, and just read it anyway because it's Iain Banks, and that man sure can write some incredible fiction.

Maq wrote:

More interesting, I think, is why 24-25 Hz is the lowest tone a human ear can process as a tone and is also the slowest framerate at which an image appears smooth.

Why's that interesting? Is there any conceivable reason to suspect anything other than numerical coincidence?

More to the point, how do you get 24-25 Hz as the lower bound of human hearing? It's not that precise a phenomenon:

Wikipedia on "Hearing Range" wrote:

Specifically, humans have a maximum aural range that begins as low as 12 Hz under ideal laboratory conditions, to 20 kHz in most children and some adults, but the range shrinks during life, usually beginning at around the age of 8 with the higher frequencies fading.

Likewise for framerate and perception of flicker - 24 Hz is not a precise threshold below which things are 'flickery' and above which they're not. In addition to which, how 'jerky' an image appears depends on how dynamic the image is.

Further reading...

Jonman wrote:

Might not be what you're looking for, but have a read of Iain M. Banks' novel The Algebraist. It's sci-fi of the highest caliber, and deals largely with The Dwellers, a species that exist on a much slower timescale than humans. Part of the story revolves around the Slow Seers, a group of humans who use technology to interact with the Dwellers by 'slowing' their own existence so they can operate on the same timescale.

Alternatively, ignore what I've written there, and just read it anyway because it's Iain Banks, and that man sure can write some incredible fiction. :)

Actually the whole Dwellers thing and using technology to talk to them sounds really really cool; especially if it's kind of "Dark City" mixed with some 12 Monkeys tech. That would be cool.

I had a question, but I've forgotten it. Does anyone know what it was?

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I had a question, but I've forgotten it. Does anyone know what it was?

Yes. And no, you can't have my skin to make a dressing gown out of. And no, even if you did, it wouldn't make you as awesome as I am.

Not even half?

Jonman wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

I had a question, but I've forgotten it. Does anyone know what it was?

Yes. And no, you can't have my skin to make a dressing gown out of. And no, even if you did, it wouldn't make you as awesome as I am.

What if he was really careful when removing the face, making himself into a sort of Handsome Jon?

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Not even half?

What good is half a manskin dressing gown?

Jonman wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Not even half?

What good is half a manskin dressing gown?

This made me lol at work!!

Maq wrote:

Have you seen Mike Monteiro's "f*ck You, Pay me" video?

I have not, but I just found the link to it, thanks! I should send this to the feller...

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I had a question, but I've forgotten it. Does anyone know what it was?

Yes.

Answer: You ask him for it.

Grenn wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

I had a question, but I've forgotten it. Does anyone know what it was?

Yes.

Answer: You ask him for it.

No, I would say you grab his first.

Grenn wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

I had a question, but I've forgotten it. Does anyone know what it was?

Yes.

Answer: You ask him for it.

Not without incident, pal.