(1)
(this is a very very rare
question) I got my name-the-product
and I just don't think it's good enough. I looked
with a microscope and I think there are some flawed
areas and I don't think you are nearly as good as
you think you are. You're no Michelangelo, you know
that! So whaddya gonna do about it?
I
have a no-questions-asked refund policy. Customer
dissatisfaction, however rare, results in an instant
refund, assuming you have a receipt. That means
that you will also delete my product from your
files and remove it from any derivative work in
which you have used it. I also provide refunds
for people who order products in error because
they do not have the correct programs required
to use the files.
(2)
(this is a an occasional question)
I just downloaded my zipfile and I can't
see my files or there's something missing/corrupted/wrong,
what are you going to do?
I'm
going to send you a form email with (1) a request
that you briefly and clearly describe what it
visually looks like on your end, including a screenshot
if possible and (2) a series of technical questions
I need in order to troubleshoot: What platform
are you using? What decompression utility you
used to unzip the files? Did you use any kind
of download accelerator? What graphics program
you are using to open and view the files? Did
you read the product description and the README
file for the product?
There are many factors which might result in a
what you are describing, but until I get the answers
to those questions I am not able to do anything
because I have no clue what's going on.
A missing file can be supplied very quickly if
that is the problem. But files you "can't
see" are another matter. There would be many
potential reasons for a zipfile to become corrupted
during transmission and that's not so easy to
figure out. Remember that I can not see what you
can see and it's important to try and communicate
as clearly as possible from the beginning so I
can find out what the problem is.
Realize that I want to help you. Quickly.
Meanwhile, here are a few things for you to consider
while filling out that form. Before you
send me the information that I request, it will
also be important for you to have read the product
description and the README file for the product
that you have purchased. Don't be offended,
from 7 years of experience I know that
95% of the people who send this "Help"
email have not done this. If you are in the 5%
who have, this paragraph does not apply to you.
I
may need to to retest the zipfile in question
by downloading it myself from my own server again
and unzipping it again into an experimental folder
to make sure once again that it is perfect. This
also will take a bit of time. I'm happy to do
it, after
I get the form with the technical information
I requested. Even when/if I reestablish
that the file on my servier is 100% perfect, I
may want to figure out what has happened when
the file traveled from my server to your computer.
That learning process goes on all the time and
that's why I ask those questions in order to zero
in on the problem. The point is that if I don't
know what's happening I could just be sending
out another corrupted file.
But . . .sometimes
things permanently remain a mystery to everybody
because there are so many unknown variables. It
may be that you experienced some kind of random
bandwidth bottleneck due to a server or network
slowdown that resulted in an incomplete download
or file corruption. It may be that your own computer
has resource issues or hiccupped. It may be that
you have a slow internet connection and you must
try to download again or even many times. It may
be that your email server doesn't like Zencart.
Sometimes, for the sake of everybody's time, I
give up complex analysis and start fresh by repackaging
the entire product.
I will do whatever I need to do to make sure you
get a perfect copy of the product you have ordered.
But I will do nothing at all until I get the answers
to the technical questions I need in order to
begin my troubleshooting for your problem.
Please be patient with this process and you will
soon have what you need because I personally stand
behind every pixel on this website and if I can't
provide what you paid for I would happily provide
you with a full refund.
(3)
(this is an occasional question)
I've registered in your shopping cart but I'm unable
to order products? What have I done wrong? What
can't I shop?
You've
done nothing wrong. Thank you for your interest
in my store. I'd love to have you as a customer.
Because of the nature of digital design resources,
rapid electronic delivery, and issues of copyright
protection, I personally approve all applications
for store registrations.
Before
approving a new store registration, I ask that
potential customers do 2 things: (1) read my Terms
of Use page and license, and (2)
fill
out a brief form agreeing to respect
my license and Terms of Use as they apply to the
specific personal or commercial uses you envision
for my products. It won't take long to do this.
You may already know all that information and
it might be boring. But some things in the TOU
may be different than what you're used to at other
stores and you would need to know and understand
in order to safely order products from me. There
are restrictions or provisos for the use of some
products in some specific usages and it would
be genuinely useful for you to scroll down to
find the usage terms you may be looking for.
A
word about response-time: I respond as quickly
as possible once I receive the form data in my
email. But because I am a sole proprietor who
both creates the products and manages the store,
I am naturally not always available to authorize
accounts instantly. Once I even took a short vacation
of 3 days. But I am online about 10-12 hours a
day, 7 days a week and in normal circumstances
I pick up email through the day and respond to
it right away. I will do my best to facilitate
your completed registration as quickly as possible
- unless I am kidnapped or lying in a como somewhere.
If
I do not respond to your registration within a
couple of hours, it's possible that something
has come up which makes that impossible.
I could be sleeping. I could be taking dogs to
the vet. I could be eating or exercising or grocery
shopping. But I'm rarely away from my keyboard
for very long and I regret any delays you may
experience and try to reduce them to the minimum.
If I do not respond for days . . . EITHER something
horrible may have happened to me OR I'm off having
too much fun and you'll have to flog me for it
later.
This
procedure is not intended as an insult or embarrassment
to incoming customers. But reading and agreeing
to the TOU and license is required in order to
become a customer of Jaguarwoman Designs. In this
way, I have fewer customers who claim that they
had no idea what the license says. It is the responsibility
of the shoppers in my store to know
the conditions of use.
(4)
(I get this all the time)
My hard drive crashed and I lost all the graphics
I bought from you and I'm devastated. I did not
keep a back up copy. Is there any way I can get
another download of past orders! Help me please!
You
bet! As long as there is breath in my body I will
reset your downloads. I'll be back in a flash
and let you know when I've done it. It's always
useful to keep a backup of your orders, but with
the magic of pixie dust and the help of my Zencart
and your name and/or email address and maybe even
the order information (that wouldn't hurt) I can
reset the downloads until the day I die or they
haul me off to the old age home. Of course, we
don't know how soon that may happen, so perhaps
you should, after all, make a back up copy of
those files. So far, I've never failed to provide
a download reset pretty quickly.
(5)
What graphics programs do you recommend for using
your products?
To
make use of my products, you definitely need a
graphics program which can read and manipulate
png and psd file format and which has
layers capabilities. That would include
Paint Shop Pro 5.5+, Adobe Photoshop, or Corel
Painter. There are other programs which might
have those features, but I don't use them &
don't have them or use them and can't vouch for
them. So if you have other programs you would
have to consult with your own program manual to
verify if it will recognize png and psd file form
and if it has layer capabilities. It would be
your responsibility to know that before you buy
the products here. Please do verify whether you
have the graphics products needed to read and
manipulate the files in each products. There is
a readme file linked/attached to every product
description (right underneath the product promo
paragraph) which lists the file format for each
file in the product. You can consult that before
buying the product and thereby know whether you
would be able to use the product. If you make
a mistake and end up buying a product which you
can not use because you do not have a graphics
program which will open the files, I will happily
grant you a refund. But I don't want you to be
disappointed. So please do read that Readme
file and make sure you are buying something you
can use.
(6)
I opened my files and they are all on top of one
another and seem to be stuck together.
Although
you haven't given me any real information necessary
to help you here (such as the name of the product)
and by rights I should send you the form email
mention in FAQ #1, I'm going
to guess that you have just downloaded and opened
a product which is provided in a layered
psd file format and you (1) did not read
the product description (2) did not read the product
readme linked to the product description, (3)
did not read the readme inside the zipfile of
the product, and (4) have not opened your layers
tool in your graphics program to see the layers
for the images, which you could turn on and off
and copy and paste into new documents.
(7)
I love your (name the product), but I was hoping
to find that (name the individual element) in another
(name the color/shape,configuration) for my (name
the individual need). Can you send me the original
layers for that? Or can you just make a little change
in the (name the parameter) and send it to me?
No,
I can't do that. Not because I don't want to satisfy
you. I live to satisfy people, if it is humanly
possible. In this case, I'm devastated, because
it actually isn't possible to accomodate you in
this this time/space continuum. At least as long
as I am unable to clone myself.
Each product is provided on an "as is"
basis. Naturally anything that is missing or corrupted
from a product file will be replaced quickly (see
#1 above). But no individual
elements can be supplied separately. I will not
break products down into individual elements for
sale. I cannot provide the layered working files
in which a design element is broken down. Backgrounds
and compositions are provided only as merged images
and unless specified in the product description,
are not available in layers with each compositional
element on seperate psd layers. No customization
is provided for individual design elements in
a product package.
I
don't want anybody to be disappointed in their
purchases, but if you don't think that the product
description and file list and specifications answer
your needs, it's best not to buy the product because
the time and energy which would enable me to tailor
the product to individual needs simply does not
exist.
Be
sure and read the README which is attached of
each product descriptions in the store and provides
the file format and sizes for each design element
in each package.
(8)
After I order, how do I get my products?
Your
download information should arrive very
quickly, sent automatically by the shopping cart
system. It should come in the form of
an order acknowledgment with a link back to your
store account page, where you should
find a download link for the merchandise. Normally,
there is a PayPal redirect immediately after payment
which goes directly to your account page. You
can also simply go directly to the store, log
in, click on the "My Account" button
(in the far right of the top navigation bar) and
go to your account page to check for download
links that way.But
. . .if the notification doesn't arrive quickly
or the download links do not ppear on your account
page, it would mean something is awry or the email
or my server or with the shopping cart system.
In that case, contact me right away and I'll expedite
the delivery personally.
Please
note: on rare occasions (like 1% of the time)
customers do not receive their email notifications
because they have transferred funds from a checking
account into PayPal to cover the purchase but
the check has not yet cleared their bank. PayPal
considers these transactions "pending"
until the check clears and the download link will
not appear in the account until the PayPal removes
the "pending" hold. Also, occasionally,
customers have a very active spam filter which
rejects the notices containing the download links.
These are situations beyond my control, but I'm
happy to look into the reasons why the download
links did not arrive in a timely manner.
(9)
What are the Terms of Use for your products?
Jaguarwoman's
general statement of Terms of Use can be found
on my Terms of
Use page and also in the readme.txt
which is included in the zipfile for each product.
Additional
background explanation for my stance on redistribution
of my work can be found here.
(12)
I have a poor internet connection and it takes a
long time for me to download your files. Could you
just break down your zipfiles into individual images
and send them as single attachments to emails to
make it easier for me to receive them?
No.
This is not because I don't want to give you what
you want, it is due to the realistic limitations
of the time/space continuum. There's just one
woman here, managing a very busy website and creating
products and it's not done with pixie dust. Sorry,
don't mean to disappoint, but I live within the
bounds of reality and it's not possible for me
to meet your request.
(12)
What kind of graphics program do I need to use your
graphics?
You
need a graphics program which will recognize psd,
png, and jpg file formats, preserve background
transparency, and which has "layers"
capabilities. That would be Paint Shop Pro 5.5+,
PhotoShop, and Corel Painter. There are other
programs that will get the job done but these
are what I use and will personally vouch for.
If you want to use other programs to manipulate
my graphics, the best thing you can do is simply
read the manual for those programs and see what
file format they support, because if I don't use
those programs, I wouldn't be able to answer questions
about them.
(13)
Would you tell me how do you do . . . everything?
Now I ask you . . . is this a reasonable question?
Remember those bounds of time and space I mentioned
above? This question is so vast and vague, it
puts a burden on me to try to imagine what you
really wants to know. It's just not humanly possible
to convey everything in an email. I understand
that many graphics users are new to the Internet
and new to graphics, but the honest answer is
that what I do represents about 8 years of brain
sweat, and tears negotiating thousands of learning
curves, creating hundreds of pages, mastering
thousands of tiny skills that cannot be communicated
in an email. Another answer is provided in my
store, through the detailed tutorials which I
sell there. Another alternative is to post
your question in my forum. In this
way, I can answer questions once for many people.
But the final answer is . . .I don't know. Really.
I am always flying by the seat of my pants and
a lot of what I do is a happy accident and I'm
not really an expert artist or Photoshop user
and I honestly don't always know how to explain
what I do because I'm ignorant but intuitive.
(14) I just
started out in webdesign. Would you be willing to
give me some guidance and tips so I can do all the
stuff you do? I'd be happy to give you a link on
my site.
I really can't do that. It's' not humanly possible.
Anyway, I haven't done webdesign work for over
4 years and haven't kept up with technical changes
and could give you up-to-date information.
(15)
What graphics programs do you use?
Ah, a question I can actually answer within the
rest of the years alotted me! I have Paint Shop
Pro (7, 8 and 9), Photoshop 6 and PhotoShop CS,
Corel, Bryce, Kai's Power Tools, Blade Pro, Poser,
FrontPage 2000, Flash, and Painte IX, and PhotoImpact,
to mention a few. On a daily basis, I prefer PhotoshopCX3,
and Dreamsuite's Liquid Metal. For digital painting,
I use both PhotoShop CX3 and Painter9. These are
the programs with which I render virtually all
my graphics and webpages.
(16) What kind of webpage
editor do you use?
For years, I hand coded everything using Web Page
Creator. Then I became a Microsoft FrontPage convert.
Now I'm enthusiastic for Dreamweaver. But in webdesign,
there is no substitute for knowing html. Once
you know enough to troubleshoot html, it is very
convenient to use a good WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage
or DreamWeaver.
(17)
I have to teach a class in beginning webdesign next
week, so can you give me some quick tips on how
to make wonderful webgraphics like you have on your
site and how I can get this kind of training?
Everything I do is largely intuitive and I'm a
technical dunce. I can't stress my ignorance enough.
Please don't ask me too much for help, it's dangerous.
I also have no training in computers or art of
any kind. I am a 63 year-old-woman who has already
exhausted several other careers (among them teaching
history and 10 years of private practice as a
psychotherapist) and wanted to find a new way
to make a living. After washing out of AOL's digital
bootcamp in tears because I was too stupid to
pick up the technology and too stubborn to conform
to the corporate group-think, I picked up a book
entitled "Learn How to Write HTML in a Week".
I followed the instructions and did a lesson every
day for a week and produced my first horrifyingly
bad webpage at the end of the week. I created
a website called "The Authoritative Matchmaker"
and became an Internet Dating Expert for several
years and even appeared on the front page of U.S.A.
Today. But then . . . counseling singles turned
out to be as exhausting as doing long term therapy
with the chronically mentally ill and I lost interest
in matchmaking after a few years as my interest
in digital design grew.
I never had any artistic training, I never took
a class of any kind in computer skills. I just
had burning desire to play with this stuff, and
through endless trial and error I developed a
bit of how-to knowledge. I've recently turned
most of my effort to digital painting.
I
am, however, blessed with the best formal education
I could ever have hoped for as a child of the
gritty working class. I have a B.A. in History
(U.C., Davis, class of 1969), an M.A. in History,
and an M.Ed. in Counseling and Guidance, a graduate
certificate (something less than a full degree)
in Gerontology, and a lot of external clinical
training as a Marriage & Family therapist
and addiction counselor. Add to that 30+ years
of daily, relentless autodidactic study. Some
people seem to take weird offense at this academic
accumulation. So I have to stress how neurotically
ambitious I am and how much I sacrificed and how
hard I worked at it. I come from a very poor,
working class background who also just lucked
out and was in the right place at the right time
in history to take advantage of the California
school system and universities. I consider myself
very very lucky to be born at an unusual time
in history. I am deeply grateful for my Liberal
Arts education and consider it an major achievement
of Western Civilization that women like myself
are enabled to study whatever fascinates them.
But I didn't just "get" my education.
I wrung it out of the system. It took
me 20 years to get 10 years of formal university
learning because I pieced it together by stealing
time from various endeavors and jobs and supporting
2 husbands (consecutively, not at the same time,
hunh!) while they did what was a lot more important
than what I wanted and while I moved all over
the U.S. and Europe and while I/we couldn't afford
for me to go to school. I have no idea why some
people would find education so irritating in others,
because anybody who wants to sacrifice and work
as hard as I did, as long as I have, could probably
do something close to what they want to do. Maybe
not anybody. You have to be pretty lucky as well
as doggedly persevering. You don't have to be
brilliant. But you do have to want it reeeeeeally
badly. Just like any other skill or knowledge
aquisition.
(18) How can
I get my image cut up in pieces so it fits together
and doesn't have any gaps and holes?
There are many programs for accomplishing this.
I use PSP9 for this purpose.
And
note that when people complain about "holes"
in their table array, it is usually because they
have dropped off a "td" ending or have
inadvertently introduced an extra space or hard
break into their code.
(19)
Who are you really?
One good way to learn about me on a personal level
is to read my Blog, in which I constantly blab
every thought and feeling I've got. This FAQ sums
up my sarcastic, smart aleck personality pretty
well. But in lieu of that ordeal, here are a few
relevant facts about who I am:
A
color freak and major headtripper without benefit
of psychedelic inducements.
A
3rd decanate Scorpio with the Sun, Jupiter, and
Venus conjunct, Pisces rising, the Moon in Libra,
and Mars and Mercury conjunct in Sagitarrius.
Oh my Gawd! This woman is too mouthy to bear!
This is the primary explanation for why I am so
sarcastic and have been chased out of town by
angry villagers so many times.
An individual of such seething personal ambition
that Caesar, Napoleon, and Elizabeth I would give
me a respectful nod.
A happy, orderly, Manic Depressive with excellent
self management skills and a low stress, well
regulated lifestyle. I have found that getting
my way in all things has an amazingly therapeutic
effect on my mood disorder.
I am an doglover and general animal lover and
nature worshipper. I stress dogloving above everything
else and I tend to hear the voice of God through
dogs and nature in general. I am generally anti-religious
but very spiritual in nature and dogs are, for
me, a daily spiritual practice. I commune with
nature 24 hours a day and dogs are spiritual companions
for me, grounding me constantly in a remembrance
of what really matters: compassion for all living
beings. They remind me that we are not separate
from the physical universe and humans are not
above the rest of the natural world. Dogs have
saved my life and my sanity and granted me the
humility that makes me genuinely joyful every
single day. Dogs are the voice and sign of God
in my life every day. But if I lived with wombats,
I'd probably be saying the same thing about wombats.
I have 6 dogs right now and I'd have many more
if I had the space and time, but each dog has
it's realistic needs and I don't want to slight
any of them and turn into one of those animal
hoarders who can't take care of the animals she
has. Otherwise, I'd really end up with my own
zoo. I'm also very respectful of rodents. I love
rats very much and have had many rats as pets.
The
oldest of 6 (well, the oldest of 8, counting my
parents), from the most working-class family in
the world. My mother worked in the same factory
for roughly 45 years, much of the time at night,
on the swing shift, and 35 years or so in the
same building, standing on concrete at the same
huge, clanging machines, raising her handfor permission
when she had to go to the bathroom. My parents
had a 6th and 8th grade educations. I grew up
in a treeless, pastel stucco ghetto in Southern
California, in a house that always had a baby
in it, where the stuffing was often coming out
of the couch cushions, and shitty diapers were
frequently soaking in the toilet. (Yes, there
was once a time when there were no Pampers and
people actually washed cloth diapers by hand in
the toilet before putting them into the washing
machine, but few people will remember these dark
days.) As a child, my idea of glorious wilderness
was Jungleland and Frontierland at Disneyland.
After escaping the endless, thankless domestic
servitude of my childhood and first two marriages
. . . beauty and learning and SOLITUDE became
my primary goals in life. See? Watching my mother
go off to work in that factory was a great motivation
to get an education, eh? Perfect stimulus for
focusing my attention on that homework.
Happily
married after many abysmal failures in relationships.
Unfortunately, being an official maniac, I racked
up more relationship demerits in the first 45
years of my life than any other woman in the known
universe. I barely deserve to live, let alone
be the blissfully happy woman that I am. And let
that be a lesson to you (shaking a my Wacom pen
in your face) . . . happiness has little to do
with what we deserve, and a lot to do with what
we choose.
A
sarcastic smart aleck who survived an abusive
childhood only by the skin of her teeth. An alternate
view of the same character traits would see me
as a brilliant, but misunderstood, comedienne
. . . a female Jerry Seinfeld. In my next life
I'm coming back as a stand up comic. At least
I'm very amusing to myself. If you don't like
sarcasm and irony in a woman, you wouldn't like
my company. But if you liked the movie "Baby
Mama", you'd really love hanging around with
me. I'm a constant source of penetrating quips
and observations. In my daily life, I my company
is dogs and I talk dog babytalk all day long.
Or work in silence. But in social company I am
an entertainer if given the chance. Oh . . .actually
I don't need anybody to give me any chances. I
steal them.
I'm a very loyal and generous person, but really
not that "nice". I'm sort of a curmudgeon.
I look sort of harmless and have a misleadingly
pleasant Sally Field quality to me, but I've got
an inner Wolverine and don't have much patience
with timewasters. If you were crushed under tons
of smoldering rubble, you'd want me on the outside,
digging you out. I'm an enemy of stupidity, where
"stupidity" is not defined by IQ but
is rather a measure of stubborn resistance to
new learning due to a narcissistic character defect.
I do not exclude myself here. I spend a lot of
time working to eradicate the vice of stupidity
from my own life and don't have a lot of tolerance
for it in other people. But I'll go the distance
for motivated, hard working, ethical people. I've
got a special radar for avoiders, emotional hiders,
and people who basically don't shoot straight,
with whom I am, unfortunately, kinda confrontational
and mean spirited.
Did I mention that I give new meaning to the phrase
"question authority"? I'm a lot like
my little 4 1/2 pound heartbeat Chihuahua, Lily:
she recognizes no authority.
(20) These
are a few of my Sources of Sheer Delight:
-My
husband, Robert . . . every day, every hour, every
moment I am blessed with his presence.
-my
wolfdog, Roman (now deceased) and my Shepweiler
Xena (now a 100 lb dog who has broken my leg,
but only accidentally), my sweet little Chihuahua,
Jolie, and my little pirannha Chihuahua rescue,
Charlie (who is slowly coming around and becoming
a lovely friend), my little Paco and my heartbeat
Lily, my new darling rescue, Honey. Here are some
photos of my dogs: http://www.jaguarwoman.com/dogs.html
and http://www.jaguarwoman.com/chihuahuas/lily.html.
Dogs are pretty much my passion. I'm very keen
on dog rescue and highly recommend taking in abandoned
dogs.
-watching Animal Planet, particularly Steve Irwin,
Crocodile Hunter . . . a Real Man, who's not afraid
to crawl in the mud and gush over the beauty of
a little snake, may he rest in peace.
-reading
day and night: history, hard science fiction,
evolutionary biology, natural history, cyberculture,
futurism, literary fiction, more history, and
more history, especially American history.
-iceskating
. . . every moment I am on the ice is the deepest
form of pleasure I know. That's right, it's better
than sex . . . but not quite as exciting as .
. . reading or walking my dogs. (amended to note
that I don't figureskate since I broke my leg).
-language,
language, language. I am a fluent reader and passable
talker in French, German, Spanish and paltry Russian.
When wandering down the street like a homeless
refugee, I talk to myself and gesticulate in all
these languages to my wolfdog, Roman, thereby
frightening away potential muggers.
-
I'm a true hedonist and devote a lot of time to
simple pleasures with maximum rewards.
Favorite Male Actors (or Models of Machismo)?
My
husband. Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Sean Connery,
Sean Connery, Sean Connery, Steve Irwin, Crocodile
Hunter, Sean Connery, Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen.
I like men of the Braveheart variety, physically
strong, utterly capable with a hammer and saw,
sexy family men, natural leaders who are not domineering,
with a strong sense of moral courage, willing
to rescue kittens from burning buildings, capable
of slavish devotion to me, boyishly sweet, and
unfailingly tender toward all the creatures and
plants of the world. I like big macho men who
wouldn't hesitate to kiss a rat (because I LOVE
rats and I'm a big devotee of rodents). I like
real heroes, not pretty boys or effete intellectuals.
I insist on being the pretty, intellectual one.
Who
are your favorite writers?
Tom
Wolfe, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, Ken Wilbur,
Edward O. Wilson, Isabel Allende, Carlos Fuentes,
Alexandre Dumas, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Richard
Dawkins, Neal Stephenson, Dean Koontz, Stephen
King, Susan Isaacs . . . and the staff of the
"National Enquirer". I do get a lot
of my vital information from "The National
Enquirer".
What
are your pet peeves? (Okay, nobody ever asks me
this, but I thought I'd throw it in here anyway)
#1
. . . people who endanger my life by driving their
cars and talking on their cell phones at the same
time. I'm sure you know that statistics show the
accident rate for drunk drivers and cellphone
talkers is . . . exactly the same.
#2 . . . lazy thinkers who try to avoid life's
inevitable learning curves by getting me to think
for them. The world is an open book. Read it,
for crying out loud. Or have it read to you. Thoughtless
timewasters . . .my biggest triggers for impatience.
Dithering timewasters who exploit other people's
energy and steal their time by shear lazyiness,
just not wanting to do their own thinking and
want me to pay attention for them. You can see
it all the time on the roads, with the texting
and cell phone drivers. Or people who communicate
sloppily in shorthand and assume you will automatically
know what they are talking about and fill in the
blanks and read their minds or push the shopping
carts back into place or pick up their trash or
pick up after their dogs (I always pick up after
my dog and everybody else's anyway). I hate laziness
above almost everything else but animal abuse.
#3
. . . unnecessary ignorance, in myself or anybody
else. I'm in permanent battle against my own ignorance,
but I wish everybody would do the same thing.
#4
. . . cottage cheese, fatty meat, and people who
try to make you eat whatever is on your plate.
#5
. . . chronic whiners and complainers and what's
even worse NITPICKERS. Look at my work and you
can't miss the fact that I know how to pay attention
to details. But I'll decide which details I pay
attention to and when, thank you. I don't like
other people to presume to project their agenda
of details onto me with their idiosyncratic nitpicking
criticism. I've got got my own Inner Critic
and she's plenty ruthless, believe me.
She don't need no help! She's a ruthless
Wolverine of nitpicking criticism already!
#6
. . . apropos of nitpickers . . .people who come
to my lavish banquet and complain about a few
crumbs of typos they find littered here and there.
I find the reporting of typos on a website like
mine to be a small minded form of passive aggressive
one-upsmanship from people who are blind to what
is being so generously provided and who apparently
have nothing better to do than catch other people's
tiny errors. They rarely introduce themselves
and they NEVER have an online address I can go
to return the favor of critiquing their efforts.
They basically do nothing and provide nothing
online but to report typos. My deepest contempt
is reserved for people who, without even introducing
themselves, and without any other comment about
my website, report a typo . . . as though they
were rushing up with some vital piece of information
I really need. You might say I have a quirky response
here that goes beyond the normal response to do-good
typo reporters.
How
do you feel about copyright violations?
The
following statement of tolerance must excluse
unethical SnaggerTubers
and Filesharing digital pirates who
redistribute my work in SnaggingTubing Groups
and have taken freebie-itis to new depths. Other
than that . . . let's pretend that overzealous
copyright police are another of my pet peeves,
okay? I am NOT overzealous, but I have some very
big hotbuttons and organized filesharing and flagrant
digital piracy are among them.
Naturally, I don't think it is okay to steal my
designs or anybody else's. And . . . I'm suspicious
of the motives of anybody who makes a major life
commitment to bitching about copyright violations
instead of focusing on the vast benefits and glorious
experiences open to them through the Information
Revolution and the Internet.
I
very much don't like the self appointed Internet
vigilante committees who roam around inspecting
websites for copyright violations. Invariably,
when I look at their own pixel work, I wonder
why they don't spend more time studying graphics
tutorials than chasing rustled webgraphics. I
can't help giggling at professional creativity
victims who play that broken record: "they
stole my idea!". Like there's a shortage?
Not. (If two men on opposite sides of the world
can come up with a telephone or an atom bomb at
the same time, it makes the ownership of ideas
very questionable). I avoid electronic communities
dedicated to the denunciation and shaming exposure
of accused copyright violators but I won't hesitate
to publicly expose anybody who is frankly just
reselling or redistributing my work.
Take
reasonable precautions with your work and if people
use it inappropriately, just send them a straightforward
letter and then forget it. I've sent and received
that kind of notice and observe that it is sometimes
followed by swift corrections. But it is more
likely to be followed by defensive nastiness and
escalating flamewars. My own "stern letters"
could chill the entire Amazon Basin. But don't
turn the experience into an entire online personality,
or organize vast online communities around the
principle of copyright victimization. It encourages
a sense of chronic victimization, which is not
an attractive lifestyle to me (but is particularly
appealing to many women for reasons that have
little do do with artistic honesty). If you have
an organization to ban clitoridectomies in Africa
or rescue abused animals or save the women in
Afghanistan from slavery . . . or some such thing
. . . I'm for it. But I'm not up for chasing evil
copyright violators from the earth, mainly because
it takes too much time and money for a small businessperson
to do. Under the prevailing conditions, the correction
for this kind of theft actually steals too much
joy, resulting in an even greater sense of loss
than one would normally feel by the theft of a
button or background. The primary exception
to this generous stance is, of course FILESHARING
GROUPS and DIGITAL PIRACY, which exist for the
precise purpose of selling or redistributing images
and which foster a climate in which anonymous
graphics are inevitably shared with many, many
people and which undermines the modest income
of working class artists.
Chronic
indignation is not the friend of creativity, so
I am forced to ignore most copyright violations.
I am no friend of indignation vibes. I find it
to be a form of process addiction. I try to avoid
vibrating on stuff like that like an alcoholic
avoids the first sip of scotch. Violations happen.
Copyright violations are among the least of our
worries in terms of the havoc they wreak in our
world. As for stealing ideas? The ideas are in
the air, for Gawd's sake.
I
don't care about "copying". Good luck
to anybody who wants to copy me, anyway, 'cause
I'm already heading down another path, he he,
ha ha, ho ho, tra la la!, doing something bigger
and better and more gratifying than the last thing
I did.
