Quick note about publishing…

Howard Rogers has been very vocal on a few of points recently. I would link to his blog entries on the subject, but he’s thrown his toys out of the pram and blocked his blog for the time being.

The blog tag game. I love it. I like reading stupid stuff about people and I’m really glad Jake started it. It’s nice to see that we don’t all take life too seriously. I would hate to think that one person making a mountain out of a mole hill would stop people from trying new (for this community) things.

None of these blog posts are unsolicited. These blog posts are not being forced on anyone. If people don’t want to read them they can just switch off. I don’t remember ever asking for my blog to be included in one of the many aggregator sites, so I’m not going to apologize about writing lots of off-topic blogs. If you don’t like it, don’t subscribe.

Alternatively, just subscribe to the Oracle catagory of my blog, which probably will be on-topic:

https://oracle-base.com/blog/category/oracle/feed

Crediting other people. I would like to take this opportunity to say something about crediting the work of others. I got some grief from Howard because I did not reference his article, or give him any sort of credit in my article on rlwrap. There is a single very big reason for this. I didn’t know his article existed and I hadn’t read it when I wrote the piece. I Googled the term “rlwrap”, clicked on the first link returned, downloaded the utility, installed it as was obvious from the “./configure” output, and used it. Simple as that. It’s not exactly rocket science so I didn’t bother to search the net for other examples of how to do it. As a result I have no reason to credit him in this article.

If I had read his or anyone else’s article on this subject, I probably wouldn’t have written it in the first place, but I would certainly have credited them if I had.

You are not duty bound to search the net looking for similar articles and give credit where credit is not due. It’s good to credit people if their work has helped your understanding while writing your article. It’s important to credit people if you are quoting directly from them. It is illegal to republish information without permission.

Conclusion. Have fun with your blogs. That’s what the internet is all about. Write what you want to write. Don’t worry if someone has already done something similar. As long as you are not stealing it’s no big deal. Most of the articles the Oracle community write, including Howard’s, are variations on a theme, so to claim some form of ownership of the subject is wrong. Different people like different viewpoints and writing styles. There’s room for us all.

A request. Please don’t use the comments for this post for “me-too” posts. It’s only my opinion and it’s no more or less valid than anyone else’s. I’m not looking for support or validation because I’m secure enough in my self to not need it. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Tag! Here goes a chain letter…

I just got tagged by Chris Muir, so here goes my 8 things you may not know about me:

  1. When I was 14 years old I weighed 19 stone. That’s 266 pounds or 121 kilos.
  2. I was a distinctly average student at school. A few of my friends were surprised when I passed my exams. Education only really started to click with me after I left school and could focus on subjects I was interested in. At sixth form and university I started getting into my groove.
  3. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 15, so that’s about 23 years and counting. Even before that I ate very little meat and I never ate fish. I don’t like eggs and I can’t drink milk on its own. I love cheese. Life without cheese is not life. 🙂
  4. I have a form of diabetes known as MODY. In my case it relates to a mutation of the Glucokinase gene. It’s no big thing, but I have to avoid getting too fat and I have to be careful with sugary food (refined or natural).
  5. I played guitar in a couple of bands (Pondlife and Coppertongue) at University. The bands were pretty good, but I wasn’t. I specialized in making weird noises with my guitar effects, rather than actually playing.
  6. I love singing. If I’m alone I sing out loud. If I’m in public I sing in my head. If you see me in the street or in a shop I’m not a crazy guy talking to himself. I’m just singing. 🙂 I can hold a tune, but I’m no star in the making.
  7. Most of my adult life I’ve been an insomniac. I find it very difficult to get to sleep and when I do I wake up a lot during the night. As a result I tend to remember lots of dreams. On average about 3-5 distinct dreams a night. I keep meaning to start writing them down but I’ve never got round to it yet.
  8. I started working with Oracle by accident. I was at an interview and they asked me if I’d heard of Oracle and I said, “Is that the teletext stuff on TV?” At the time Oracle was the name for teletext on ITV, so it wasn’t as dumb as it sounds. Somehow I got the job anyway and the rest is history.

I’m going to tag Andrew Clarke, Andy C, David Aldridge, Dimitri Gielis, Howard Rogers, Jeff Hunter, John Scott and Kevin Closson. (Alphabetical from my blogroll, hopefully not repeating anyone. 🙂 )

Cheers

Tim…