Random Thoughts Showing 3,251-3,300 of 17,689

[Darcy]

I always call Russell Crowe, Jack Russell - he should never have played Jack Aubrey if he meant for me to remember his name.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Linda wrote: "Terri, Austrailia is where everybody around here want to go! Honeymoons, seasoned travelers, anniversaries. We love our Aussies: Nicole Kudman, the singer she married, Mel Gibson and the actor w..."

haha. :) Well keep your eye out, it appears that some of our next crop of Aussie actors will be popping up in even more movies in Hollywood.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Come to think of it, I believe darcy mentioned ages ago in this thread that the Edgerton brothers were in it.
I knew Joel was in it because I see him in the ads for the movie, but I never realised the other guys were in it.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Darcy wrote: "I always call Russell Crowe, Jack Russell - he should never have played Jack Aubrey if he meant for me to remember his name."

You don't want to know what I always call him. ;D

[Jane]

I'm just very lucky with the pain tolerance, and it doen't hurt all the time. Upstate NY doesn't have the hot, sticky weather for as long as you do [I live in the southern end of NY, near the PA border, and we also don't get the horrendous snows like Rochester & Buffalo, which are really north.] When my feet/ankles or leg ache, I just rest on the sofa with my legs elevated. I do use a cane as needed. Maybe someone from the UK or from Russia will answer your heat question on here.

[Jane]

Terri wrote: "Darcy wrote: "I always call Russell Crowe, Jack Russell - he should never have played Jack Aubrey if he meant for me to remember his name."

You don't want to know what I always call him. ;D"

"Late for supper?" :-)

Hmmmmm, you mean he's a dog? :-)

[Jane]

Linda wrote: "I read some more about the breathing problems some of you have due to heat and humidity. My older son did the Ironman race close to Houston, Texas, in June. He passed out from the heat. He said,..."

Hopefully, Louisville won't be as bad!

[Darcy]

Terri wrote: "Darcy wrote: "I always call Russell Crowe, Jack Russell - he should never have played Jack Aubrey if he meant for me to remember his name."

You don't want to know what I always call him. ;D"

It's not what I call him - that's a whole other thing. But when in polite society, I generally try to remember his name, and that's what I come up ;)

[Darcy]

Jane wrote: ""Late for supper?" :-)

Hmmmmm, you mean he's a dog? :-) "

Also, the lead signer of the band Great White.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Jane wrote: "
"Late for supper?" :-)

Hmmmmm, you mean he's a dog? :-)
"

hahaha. Close. :D

[Tim]

Linda wrote: "Terri, Austrailia is where everybody around here want to go! Honeymoons, seasoned travelers, anniversaries. We love our Aussies: Nicole Kudman, the singer she married, Mel Gibson and the actor w..."

There do seem to have been a strangely disproportionate amount of actors who come from down under (either Austrailia or NZ) and have made it big in hollywood. Apart from the ones you mentioned there's also Eric Bana, Brian Brown, Temuera Morrison, Karl Urban, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger, Paul Hogan and a few others I've probably missed.

Some think Sam Neill is one too, but he's actually from Omagh in Northern Ireland. :-)

[Darcy]

Mustn't forget the Hemsworth boys. ;)
(or Olivia Newton-John)

[Bryn]

Since we do obituaries here:
I'm sad to see that Jack Weatherford lost his wife Walker Pearce in June. Here's a feature on her in the UB Post. She explored Mongolia with him in a wheelchair.
http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=441

[C.P.]

Bryn wrote: "Since we do obituaries here:
I'm sad to see that Jack Weatherford lost his wife Walker Pearce in June. Here's a feature on her in the UB Post. She explored Mongolia with him in a wheelchair.
http:..."

I'm sorry to hear that. Not surprised—she was already very sick when I wrote to him 18 months ago—but sorry, as he seemed very devoted to her.
Thanks for posting.

[Darcy]

When a guinea pig (I imagine the same for other wee critters) decide to host a mite party, the clean-up is astounding. For their generosity, I get to do laundry every day for the next month. It'll be the cleanest bedding in the world.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

eww mites.

[Darcy]

I'm thankful it's just a small infestation and caught early, but still changing the bedding daily is just such a hassle. And to be fair, it's just the nits (sp?) so far.

[Dawn]

Ugg, that sucks!

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Okay. it has happened again.

Some people who have been a part of A&M for a long time will remember that we once had a very active member called Chris. For some reason he up and deleted his GR account one day and deleted all his group comments as when he went.
Today, another member of our group was booted off Goodreads by Goodreads admin.

You might be surprised at how this affects your interaction with the Book groups on GR.
What this does to any group he was in on GR is this:

*Any threads that individual posted in will not get a red 'new' on them until you have posted in the thread again.

*You will not get a lot of notifications and you will see no red new for new posts on threads you are following if you do get a notification.

*Once you have posted again in a thread, things will go back to normal for you.

It is a flaw to the GR system and sucks.

The other problem:
When an active member leaves Goodreads and deletes comments as they go this means;

*Every thread they have been involved in, their posts are gone and discussions will look odd.

Anyone scrolling trhough the discussions will see members talking to and replying to posts that are no longer there and it means the threads don't make sense in certain parts anymore.

This is especially painful in threads where the person was extremely active and vocal in discussions.

I probably shouldn't name names, butsince he was an active member and on many of your friends lists here on GR I will spill.

The person was Stuart from the UK (I won't mention surname).
Many of you knew him as he has been very active these last few months and had befriended many of us.

He has been plagiarising reviews. Some people in another group busted him.
They found 10 of his reviews were plagiarised from Amazon. They stopped looking at 10 and reported these reviews to Goodreads.
He was copying and pasting reviews from Amazon, changing a couple words around and posting them in his name on GR.

So it appears Goodreads have banned him from the site. And rightfully so.
People put a lot of work into their reviews. Many people, like myself, have reputations or are building reputations as professional reviewers.
It would not be nice to have your reputation in question if someone saw your review in someone else's name. It would look like 'you' were the plagiariser unless you coulld prove otherwise.

So from now on, if you are going through threads and they start getting odd, remember that Stuart is gone and his comments went with him.

It also appears evident that he was using two profiles in A&M. I don't know what the other profile name was, but it is gone too.
I know he used it to vote on our polls, but I don't know if he used it in discussions. So there may be posts missing from that fake profile too.

Sorry for the inconvenience that you will all suffer due to the no red 'new' on threads where his posts are gone.
I wish Goodreads could fix it so when people left the webiste this red new on threads thing did not happen....

[Bryn]

I'm shocked.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I was too when my mate messaged me to break the news.

[Lia]

Wow!

[Jane]

Oh, my goodness!!

[Nate]

That sucks. I recently befriended Stuart and he seems like a nice dude. Not sure what's up with this plagiarism stuff.

[Jane]

Some people are lazy!! They should just rate a book with stars and not write a review at that time. They can always write reviews later. Reviews don't have to be Nobel Prize quality, clever, or use a lot of 50 cent words; what's important is to express the reviewer's honest opinion.

[[deleted user]]

Scandalous. I just complimented Stuart(or whoever he is) on his reviews the other day.

[Nate]

I agree. If you want professional reviews you shouldn't be here. This is a place where the average Joe or Jane can express themselves. That said, there are a lot of professional-quality reviews posted to this site and it can be intimidating. I was very hesitant to fully express myself when I first joined but I realized that i, like all reviewers on this site, have an opinion uniquely my own and that alone usually makes a review worth reading. Maybe Stuart was facing that same kind of hesitation to express himself, which I understand. I don't know, maybe I'm too nice...

[Jane]

I agree, Nate. When I first joined I too was intimidated, then finally said to myself: "what the heck, I'll just give my opinion." This isn't school, trying to get an A+. There are some books I've read, e.g., Awen: Powys/Mercia, Offa's Dyke, Canu Heledd, 793-796 Ad which I loved and gave 5 stars but haven't yet reviewed--someday I will.

[[deleted user]]

I hear you Nate. I'm not very good with words. I'll admit that I'm still intimidated about posting reviews. I wouldn't even consider copying a review from someone else, though.

[Dawn]

Honestly, no matter what reason there was for it....there is never, ever a good one for stealing someone's else work. It's just not acceptable. Succeed or fail, it should be on your own merit, not on the shoulders of someone else.

[Bryn]

I'm intimidated too, must be usual. At home with written (not spoken) words but reviews often feel like too much self-exposure. I get shy attacks. Never short on opinions, though, and opinion wins out.

Come to that, there's no way I'd want to give you another person's opinion, instead of mine. :]

[Jane]

My conscience would bother me to steal someone else's words. From the day I joined GR, I've always felt GR is an honor system.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

What surprises me is that I have seen in Goodreads feedback recently quite a few people discovering their reviews here on Goodreads have been straight out copied and pasted. The person didn't even bother to go to Amazon to look for a review. That's brazen.

Dawn is right. There is no good reason for stealing someone else's work. Shyness, wanting to be popular. None of them are good reasons for that kind of thing.

At first I thought I was being told that he had stolen one. Then a follow up message by my mate said that it was 10, but in actuality it was 15 reviews that they found were plagiarised.

To steal one persons review is bad enough. But to then go on and keep posting other people's reviews. That is just not on. That is not shyness. That is a problem.
It is possible that every review he posted was someone else's. The person I know said they just stopped flagging the guy's reviews after finding 15. 15 was not all they found, it was just when they stopped looking.

I was intimidated at the thought of writing reviews too when I first started out on this site, but that wasn't because everyone around me looked to know what they were talking about and I was a novice. that was because I was timid at first and needed to build confidence.

Myself as an example. It has taken me many years to get to the stage where I am confident enough to leave a wordy review. Most of my earlier reviews weren't. I simply built up to it.
I don't think I would deserve to have my reviews stolen by someone just because I write a detailed review.

I write a wordy review. I once wrote a few lines. I still sometimes just write a few lines. A review is a review. Whether it is one line or 50 lines. Nobody on Goodreads cares how long peoples reviews are. they just like to read what their GR friends thought of a book.
I 'like' brief reviews on GR all the time. A brief review has as much meaning to me as a long review.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Danielle wrote: "And after a bit plagiarism becomes so obvious too. *shakes head*"

yeah. It sure does. Someone might take a whole review, or sneak a paragraph of someone else's work, or try and rewrite someone else's work, but if they keep doing it, someone is going to notice eventually.

Lesson to everyone out there. Don't do it! :)

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Jane wrote: "My conscience would bother me to steal someone else's words. From the day I joined GR, I've always felt GR is an honor system."

Exactly. Me too.

[Jane]

A review just has to be a person's honest opinion, long or short, and of course, polite and respectful.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

That's right. Please. Nobody feel intimidated. Nobody sits in judgement. Some people have a lot ot say, some don't. It doesn't matter. It is just nice to follow others reviews and most of all, it is really good when looking at a book to see everybody else's thoughts there to help you decide whether you want to try the book or not.

It isn't the amount of words that entertains me in this place, it is just the presence of words.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Speaking of wanting everyone to feel comfortable and in an a place where nobody judges.

Something recently inspired me to write a blog post on the A&M Group's Blog about our ethos here in A&M of wanting everyone to be honest about books and authors. To not worry that someone will insult you for having a differing opinion.

It is a little blog post I like to call...
I'll Have What She's having!Why You Never Agree On Books And How To Fix It. :)
http://ancientandmedievalmayhem.blogs...

[Jane]

So true, Terri. I've gotten so many ideas about books to read [and so many of the books I eventually chose to read I've really enjoyed!]; peoples' opinions are very, very helpful and valuable.

[Jane]

Nate wrote: "I agree. If you want professional reviews you shouldn't be here. This is a place where the average Joe or Jane can express themselves. That said, there are a lot of professional-quality reviews pos..."

You are kind.

[Nate]

Thank you, Jane. I should probably clarify what I posted earlier by saying that obviously plagiarism should never be practiced and it's antithetical to the idea of creativity and all that stuff, but I'm sure Stuart had a very human reason for doing so, if not a good one.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Yeah, in my opinion his human reason is the same as most people who steal other people's work. Fame.

This particular ex Goodreads member that we are talking about once approached me to say he liked the way I intro-ed my reviews. So he started copying my intro style. Only he put his opening line in bold lettering thinking it would draw attention more than the way I do it.

I mean, sure people copy other's style all the time and I did not care, but he seemed hungry. And it appears now that he was hungrier than most.

For the record though. Nobody is assasinating his character or saying anything bad about him that isn't relevant to plagiarism. We are only speaking the truth about people who plagiarise and he has been doing it since he joined Goodreads and the people at Goodreads thought his plagiarism bad enough to remove him from the site.
I personally support Goodreads removing people from the site who plagiarise other people's work.
If someone is willing to steal a 'minimum' of 15 reviews in order to gradually build up to getting fame, and the person also happens to claim he/she is an author, what is next?

Many people post their writing on Goodreads. Not a big leap to think that person may then start stealing people's writing and putting it in his or her own book.

The person can be the nicest person on earth, but that doesn't mean they won't steal intellectual property from you and use it in their name to get fame. That is their human reason and it is not a human reason that is defensible. (in my opinion. I understand it will not be everyones)

[Mark]

Very shocked by this, I have liked some of his reviews. I can't understand why he would it for.

I write the shortest reviews ever, just why I liked it and why I didn't.

[Bobby]

I'm like you Mark. Short and sweet. Sorry to hear about the plagiarism issue. I'm visiting back in my hometown with my youngest daughter so I'm off of Goodreads for the most part nowadays. Back in a few days.

[Simona]

Silly man. You did well Terri, to tell his name: this is really the kind of fame he has earned.

[Jane]

As Shakespeare [I think it was] said: "hoist by his own petard"...

[Darcy]

Who needs a wooden stake when an axe will do?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Simona wrote: "Silly man. You did well Terri, to tell his name: this is really the kind of fame he has earned."


Isn't that the truth. Someone takes advantage of other people to get fame...and then when the person is busted they are not around to see that they got some fame for 5 seconds after all. :)

In the meantime..I plan on continuing writing my own reviews, using my own mind, and reading all your own reviews as they show up on my updates. :D

[happy]

That explains why my friends list droped by one.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Darcy wrote: "Who needs a wooden stake when an axe will do?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world..."

That's kind of cool. I seem to recall a siimilar find earlier this year.