1179 Advantages.

Just so you guys know, a lot of spam comments have been getting past the filters, so I added Facebook to the list of banned words for a while. If you want to comment just don’t put your FB account as your website, if you enter anything there at all. I’ll take it off the list if it looks like the filters start working properly again.

For those of you who don’t read the comment threads, the archive was eventually removed from the other gallery. I sent a takedown notice as soon as I found out it was there. A lot of well meaning people suggested I do so, perhaps not realizing that I am capable of knowing the most obvious thing to do in the situation. But they were just trying to help, so I appreciate the effort in spite of it being a very casual insult. XD I got advice from both camps of copyright belief. By that I mean the people who think it matters and people who think that it’s pointless and everything should be free all the time. I’m not going to go over what I believe point by point, but I will say this: If you don’t defend your copyright at all the law assumes you don’t care about it, or you don’t value your work. Therefore they will not value your work. Even if a takedown notice fails, and you never go to court over the matter, the fact that you try may help you down the road when you really do need to take legal action. Which is why Disney, as a very obvious example, sends notices to random small businesses all the time. It’s also why you see Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes, pissing on various things while its creator never gets a dime, and laments the misuse of his character.

I honestly don’t mind if you save a copy of the comic to your computer, but I’d like for you to save those files from my website. You pay nothing, and I still get the ad revenue, which is basically the only source of income from this work. I don’t offer merchandise anymore, because virtually no one wanted it, and the actual book is sold almost at cost. I don’t have a way to sell electronic books of the work right now. Unfortunately that part of publishing still has gatekeepers who impose rules about how books have to be presented and I never bothered to adhere to them. I also don’t have the means to create a functional pdf from the base files right now, nor do I have the knowledge to do so. If enough people show interest in electronic collections of the comic I will find a way.

I would cheerfully accept any help in the aforementioned areas, as long as we’re talking about it.

In other news, the Teen has been playing a lot of the Deadpool game I got her for Xmas. I am only called in to assist in the most dire of times. This is usually parts where advanced platforming skills are required, because Deadpool’s controls are not precise enough for some sections of the game. It’s probably the game’s biggest technical flaw from what I’ve seen. It also does a poor job of showing you where to go sometimes. This failing must have been noted because they string money along the ground to help guide you at key points, like a trail of breadcrumbs. Still, it’s a decent game for the price now. I’m curious to see how it ends when she makes it there.

I started playing that new 3DS Zelda. I have to say it’s pretty well done so far, and it’s basically a love note to Link To The Past. The magical painting stuff is really clever. I’ve walked along a lot of walls for no reason other than to do it.

My Animal Crossing town is doing okay. There just aren’t as many people playing it now though, so it’s hard to do a lot of the multiplayer stuff it’s constantly trying to get you to take part in. This has made making money a lot harder because you have to hope someone comes online that doesn’t have the same fruit as you AND that they have a good connection AND enough time to indulge your desire to sell fruit. Generally though, if you have fruit they also have fruit and the same lack of connectivity you do. So doing some town hopping isn’t that hard to talk people into.

I also had my first high spike in turnip prices, which not a single person took advantage of. T^T Working the stalk market is a lot harder now that so few people are playing. The chance of a big loss is much higher. Plus you can’t cheat the world with turnip default swaps.