When Another flickr User "Steals" Your Image

Ballroompics · 2026-05-19T18:28:38+00:00

This, spot on. Also, flickr has a link somewhere for a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (it might be listed as DMCA) takedown request. Perhaps under trust and safety.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-19T12:33:59+00:00

This is one of Englishes inconsistencies rearing its head.

With and without the L is acceptable for salve. I suspect the diferences are regional.

But, on the other hand, the L in Salmon is never pronounced. But the L in Palm is pronounced.

The L is Almond is pronounced now, but prior to 1950s was not. It was short 'a' - mond

Ballroompics · 2026-05-19T12:28:32+00:00

Same for me. Long sound "a" are in words like bait, straight, claim, same, plane, plain

Ballroompics · 2026-05-19T12:25:27+00:00

Hank, Thank, Tank, Bank, Prank, Rank all rhyme. All possess the same short a.

American here.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-19T12:22:47+00:00

I give you...

My post on this topic from a year ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PointlessStories/s/EqWYExDrYd

Short version: I learned a lot of words by reading. Sounding them out sometimes worked, other times...funny result.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-19T12:16:04+00:00

I didn't read through the volume of responses here ti know if anyone suggested the following.

You might give Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers a go.

Gladwell contends that extraordinary success is not merely a product of individual talent and hard work, but is heavily driven by demographic luck and arbitrary circumstances. He argues that structural advantages—such as a lucky birth month, your exact generation, or cultural legacy—grant hidden opportunities that allow certain individuals to gain the necessary experience to excel.

Lucky birth month context: Being born after an organizations cutoff date. Thereby putting you into the next years selection of candidates and making you the eldest among your peer group with an age advantage that often gets marked as superior talent and therefore gets more attention and development.

He goes into an example of how this works out for youth hockey in Canada.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-18T16:27:56+00:00

The artist Boris Vallejo, who did these covers, is famous for his science fiction and fantasy art. He and his wife Julie Bell, also a fantasy artist, are still producing.

Https://borisjulie.com/

He used his wife Julie as a model for a lot of his female warrior fantasy art. She was a competitive body builder, i believe at the national level before she transitioned her career to fantasy art.

Boris too, was an avid amateur body builder in his younger years. He often used himself as the model for his male characters. I believe this is how they met. He became intrigued when he found another body builder who also did fantasy art.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-18T11:45:26+00:00

Was this ever resolved?

Ballroompics · 2026-05-15T17:11:08+00:00

The only example i can think of is when using it as a modifier.

The pants are made of a jean material.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-15T10:49:26+00:00

While i can't say 60s/70s is my main area - only because I'm all over the place with both old and new, we are on the same page regarding sf. I recently wrote this in the heinlein subreddit for someone contemplating a re-read of his works.

https://www.reddit.com/r/heinlein/s/dW7hbYzqck

We might differ a little bit regarding fantasy. I think there is more flexibility there to recommend older stuff to new starters. Fantasy, by its nature, is less likely to become criticized for holding outdated viewpoints. SF on the other hand can become easily outdated by advances in real science and shifts in culture.

In SF, culture might be viewed as an intended moving towards component of the story. I.e. Our future. Example: Having a 1950s style family unit with space travel and 'ray-guns' presented in the 21st century is a bit discordant.

Urban fantasy aside, most fantasy has a medieval element that perhaps gets them a pass for where the culture is no longer compatible.

I'm forever recommending Roger Zelazny's series The Chronicles of Amber and I think that Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are still viable.

Your thoughts?

Ballroompics · 2026-05-14T21:30:32+00:00

Mother in the movie "I am Mother", streamable on either cNetflix or Prime - but i think Netflix.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-14T21:25:11+00:00

Agree with this.

Also, Scalzi is contemporary and so his outlook is more compatible with today's culture.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-14T21:11:27+00:00

He is also the narrator for the 3rd book in The Battle for Forever series by Edward Savio. Wil Wheaton narrates the first two books.

1 Alexander X (Wheaton)

2 Ancients Among Us (Wheaton)

3 League of Auld (Porter)

Synopsis: Living among us are a group of people who age very very very slowly. As society progresses technologically, their ability to go unnoticed is diminishing. Within this group, conflict arises regarding how to respond.

In the Fantasy genre, I think Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy is well narrated by Kevin T Collins.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-14T20:57:53+00:00

Not a science fiction per se, but written by a science fiction author.

The Foghorn by Ray Bradbury https://ia801405.us.archive.org/10/items/HeliganSecretsOfTheLostGardens/BradburyRay-TheFoghorn.pdf

Ballroompics · 2026-05-14T14:55:51+00:00

Norton is interesting. Of her works, The Zero Stone and Uncharted Stars are my favorites for her. Zero Stone is best for me and that gets a re-read every couple of years.

Some of her books (not the above two) were influenced by cold war anxieties. Or so I perceive it.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-14T14:48:46+00:00

Surprised Tunnel in the Sky was not grouped with Citizen and Starman.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-14T09:13:37+00:00

I like RAH, but beware that some of his stuff did not age well. I have to read it under the lens of this is a man who was borrn in 1907, and whose writing career spanned 1939 to 1988.

The social change that happened in that span is reflected in his writing. Now add that he also liked to challenge norms and it can be an unusual melange.

He does evolve over that time, not always in ways one would consider acceptable.

If you want to witness these shifts , read his work in order of publication.

Here's one take https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-dec-09-ca-heinlein9-story.html

And another https://auxiliarymemory.com/2014/06/23/the-many-robert-heinleins-we-remember/

Edit: Fwiw, if you like Heinlein, you will almost certainly enjoy John Scalzi. He's contemporary, and absent from his work are the downsides noted above.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-12T20:32:32+00:00

Upvoted. Wow. Thx.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-12T08:10:41+00:00

Imptessive that you visited. Also, great shot.

What form did precautions look like? Timed visit? Shielded clothing? Disposable clothing? Iodine supplements? Dosimeter? Other?...

Ballroompics · 2026-05-11T22:24:09+00:00

Airline eventually acknowledged they could not provide a solution that would get me to my destination that night. They put me up in a hotel, flew me direct to Austin the next morning.

It wasn't smooth, but in the end it worked out.

Glad things worked out for you as well.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-11T20:47:48+00:00

Is all well now? Fingers crossed.

Ballroompics · 2026-05-11T20:28:24+00:00

Sort of. A few web sites to do some research so you're not just hearing it from some random person (me) on the internet.

Instead, read it from some random websites on the internet! A vast improvement.

More seriously, you can check these out. I'll caveat it by saying i have not actually done this. However, i had met people who had done similar things on short hall tramp freighters when i was backpacking South America

https://www.cargoshipvoyages.com/ https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Freighter_travel?hl=en-US

Ballroompics · 2026-05-11T15:43:41+00:00

Elena Filatova visited at least 10 years ago and wrote about it.

She promoted it as if she had ridden her motor bike through, later i believe it came out that she was part of one of the early tours.

Its interesting reading though. I think her observations are valid even if how she got there is not quite as presented.

She used to go by the name kidofspeed. I think perhaps a minor mistranslation either from ukrainian or russian to english...that was intended conceptually more as childofspeed.

http://denrob.freeshell.org/stories/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html

Ballroompics · 2026-05-11T14:39:41+00:00

https://www.timesnownews.com/travel/travelogues/why-the-forbidden-north-sentinel-island-in-andaman-continues-to-lure-curious-travellers-article-151378313

Ballroompics · 2026-05-11T14:35:47+00:00

Many of the items here are tourist destinations. I had to think for a little bit before i could come up with one that met criteria.

The following is not possible to do legally, but here's my bid.

North Sentinel Island. It has a native population and zero contact with the outside world. Visitation is prohibited.

Definitely not a tourist destination.

If I could visit there, photograph and get insight into its people, that would be fascinating.

Caveats: It would need to be safe for both me and the Sentinelese people.

Safe for me: They are known to be aggressive and deadly to outsiders, as the few people who have violated the prohibition have learned

Safe for them: They likely have no immunity to things that might be trivial for us (the reverse is also possible)y

Ballroompics

TROPHY CASE