Ecosyste.ms: Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

Awesome Lists | Featured Topics | Projects

https://github.com/shlomif/my-real-person-fan-fiction

Why real person fanfiction could "hurt" actors but not singers, and what to do about it
https://github.com/shlomif/my-real-person-fan-fiction

amateurs chuck-norris euler hacktoberfest hollywood money philosophers professional singer singer-songwriter taylor-swift technion writer youtube

Last synced: 2 months ago
JSON representation

Why real person fanfiction could "hurt" actors but not singers, and what to do about it

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        
[id="main_doc"]

Why I will continue to write my real person fan fiction (fanfic)

================================================================

Shlomi Fish 

v0.2.0, 2019-11-20



[id="tldr"]

TL;DR Summary

-------------



I, https://www.shlomifish.org/[Shlomi Fish], writer, software developer,

and amateur philosopher, will continue to write

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_person_fiction[real person fan

fiction], which is fiction that depicts famous real-life people, either

dead or alive. This is despite the fact that some people told me I must

not because it can hurt that person’s future and career. I’d like to

note why seemingly Hollywood actors have been jinxed by that, and why it

cannot happen to singers.



[id="technion_vs_projeuler"]

The Technion vs. Project Euler

------------------------------



image::./euler.webp[Portrait of Leonhard Euler]



I joked that my opinion on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technion_%E2%80%93_Israel_Institute_of_Technology[The

Technion], the University where I completed my B.Sc degree in Electrical

Engineering (= "EE"), has become "untwitterable". The more I think

about it, the more it seems that I think less highly of it, despite the

fact that some people told me that it wasn’t a waste of time, and that

I’ll fondly look back at my studies. Part of the problem was that I

studied there only in order to get my degree (while I’m not interested

in electronics), which I wanted in order to get more higher-paying jobs.



I paid money to study there, and the people whom were indirectly paid by

me, while sometimes being helpful, often had limited time to help me,

looked down upon me, and gave me hard tests and unfair grades. It

destroyed my self-esteem, harmed my health, made me maniacal, put me on

psychiatric drugs which

https://github.com/shlomif/why-openly-bipolar-people-should-not-be-medicated[harmed

my health] further, and taught me little of lasting value. Despite

paying, I didn’t enjoy it, and only did it to get the diploma, so I can

get a more lucrative job later on.



Paying and getting paid made the experience worse. This is the curse of

*professionalism*, which used to mean doing something for money instead

of because you love it and enjoy it.



Many years later, I started solving problems at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Euler[Project Euler], one of many

https://github.com/EbookFoundation/free-programming-books/blob/master/problem-sets-competitive-programming.md[competitive

programming sites]. Since I had quite a bit of maths and programming

background, I did quite well at it, and have solved over 300 problems. I

didn’t have to pay, but I voluntarily paid a small donation. I am still

unhappy by the somewhat degraded

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience[user experience] of it,

but am otherwise very content.



Despite not paying or expecting to be paid, or rather because of it, I

was met with gratitude, respect and admiration by the people I helped on

the https://freenode.net/[freenode chat network] with previous problems

I solved, or by announcing that I have solved a new one - also without

paying.



I was much happier as an *amateur* - someone who does what they do

because they enjoy it and love it, not to get paid. See

http://paulgraham.com/opensource.html[Paul Graham’s "What business can

learn from open source"] .



Lately, by inspiration from a correspondent on an Internet chat who

mentioned someone’s one line Résumé, I wrote my

https://www.shlomifish.org/me/resumes/Shlomi-Fish-Resume-as-Software-Dev.html["I’m

a Rock Star software developer" Résumé]. I included only amateur

achievements there, including Project Euler, and excluded the Technion. At

first I thought it was because EE B.Sc. degrees are quite common and so

not notable enough. But then I realised something else: I wasn’t proud

of my EE degree. These were the most vexing, toxic, soul destroying,

unproductive, six years of my life. I regret doing it for greed of

money.



That junkie stand up comedian whom I saw at a captioned twitter video

was right: if you want to succeed as a writer, entertainer, and amateur

philosopher: don’t work "hard".



[id="professionalism_in_20thC"]

Professionalism

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Professionalism seemed the way to go throughout a large part of the 20th

century. Frankly, the 20th century was not too bad: cities became self-sustaining,

life expectancy grew, women became more empowered, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor[acting] became a honourable profession, there were many technological advances, and there were philosophical and ideological advances (including by

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour.html#pbride_philosophers[cutting edge entertainers who were held in contempt] ).



Nevertheless, during the 21st century, we need to

https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-cards-on-the-table-2019-2020/#amateur-modelled-commerce[rethink

professionalism in the context of Capitalism] because everyone agrees that

people who do creative works because they enjoy doing that (= amateurs) can

produce better results than those who do it only for money.



[id="taylor_swift"]

Taylor Swift as an amateur

--------------------------



image::./taylor_swift.webp[Photo of Taylor Swift]



In

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/show.cgi?id=sharp-gnu--think-big[this

conversation], someone on freenode complained how much he disliked

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_(programming_language)[Apple’s

Swift] programming language (which you may not have heard of) and I

suggested he charge more - maybe 300 USD / hour - which he said no one

can afford. Its name reminded me of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift[Taylor Swift] - a successful

and popular singer, who has many videos on YouTube, some of which I am

fond of and which many people praise. You probably heard of her. Now, I

told him that she probably charges more than 300 USD/hour, but the fact

of the matter is, she might perform even for free for something that is

important to her, because performing is fun. Her videos, despite often

being popular, probably do not offset their production value in YouTube

ads. But they are good publicity, provide fodder for remixes, parodies

and covers, and are fun enough to produce so she can afford to sustain

the cost. She doesn’t work for money or even for a shitload of money.

She works for fun.



There is likely a lot of fan fic, fan art, comments and idolisations of

her on the Internet. She may not improve significantly, but she can

derive inspiration and comments from them, and even if she is criticised

or held in contempt, she can either ignore that criticism or learn from

it.



If I wrote a Real Person Fan-fiction of Taylor Swift, she won’t be harmed or

object. If I depicted her figuratively "kicking the ass" of the NSA in

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Summerschool-at-the-NSA/[Summerschool

at the NSA], it would not have harmed her reputation a dent, and it may

have even give her good publicity and even fodder for songs or videos.



As an amateur, it would not have harmed her, and I would not have been

considered a villain.



But I did not.



[id="smg_and_sglau"]

Sarah Michelle Gellar and Summer Glau

-------------------------------------



image::./summernsa-logo-small.webp[Logo of Summerschool at the NSA]



Instead I sent the actresses

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Michelle_Gellar[Sarah Michelle

Gellar], and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Glau[Summer Glau], two

actresses who seemed invaluable for that due to previous associations I

had. While their acting careers were already on the brink of

termination, and I depicted them positively, it likely may have sealed

the envelope on both of their Hollywood careers. But it was probably the

best for both, because the Hollywood professionals were already

intimidated by them, and they could be more productive as non-acting

non-professional activists. Why?



Because they are professionals. The better they played, the more they

were scorned and maligned and given poorer roles by other jealous

professional movie makers who were jealous of their competency and

elevated perception by amateur fans who knew better. There is a whole

https://twitter.com/shlomif/status/1174571159372935168[YouTube search

about why Hollywood cannot cast X any more] but it is the same old story.

To paraphrase on an old

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series[Star Trek

(the original series)] quote: "It does not happen some of the time. It

happens all the time."



But in the music industry it never happens. It will be very preposterous

to ever see a YouTube feature "Why no one listens to the songs of The

Beatles any more.". Moreover, even though

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Grimmie[Christina Grimmie] was

killed (in part due to her own mismanagement), and I was shocked and

saddened by that, her songs are still popular. If I now rewrote my

screenplay depicting her as a super intelligent and resourceful female,

who kicks the ass of the NSA, people will think I am helping keep her

legacy alive, and revere me for it.



[id="jk_rowling"]

JK Rowling vs. Me

-----------------



image::./jk_rowling.webp[J. K. Rowling]



I want to become the next big writer, but I want to remain writing for

fun, publishing for free https://www.shlomifish.org/[on my site] under

Creative Commons licences, and writing mostly fanfic or even real person

fiction. People feel sorry for

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling[JK Rowling] for being a

professional, despite the fact that she is a millionaire.



But people either love my work, respect me, or even think I’m

preposterous or blasphemous (which

http://shlomifishswiki.branchable.com/Encourage_criticism_and_try_to_get_offended/[indicates

I may be right]). People would cringe at reading the Harry Potter books

now ("TL;DR") but many of my old

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/[stories, aphorisms or factoids] are

still funny and fresh.



https://twitter.com/EmmaWatson[Emma Watson] is currently the most highly

paid actress in Hollywood, who rose to fame after having played Hermione

in the Harry Potter films. It makes her comparable to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger[Arnold

Schwarzenegger] who also used to be the highest paid actor.



But it’s not as if she is the new Arnold Schwarzenegger. Instead, Arnold

Schwarzenegger will forever be remembered as the old Emma Fuckin’

Watson!



Poor Emma. Why do we feel sorry for her?



Let me try it again. It’s not as if Taylor Swift is the new Madonna. In

fact, Swift is the new Socrates! I’m sure Ms. Swift will approve of the

new Taylor Swift factoid.



It does not have to be this way.



[id="actors_are_unique"]

Actors are not replaceable

--------------------------



image::./aynrand2grimmie.webp[caption="If Ayn Rand was born in the 1990s, she would be Christina Grimmie"]



Jewel Staite

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2e3t1f/jewel_staite_ama/cjvt8t9/[testified]

that only she and Summer Glau could have played their characters on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_%28TV_series%29[_Firefly_].

Similarly I am more and more convinced that only Emma Watson can play

Selina on https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Selina-Mandrake/[my _Selina

Mandrake - The Slayer_] screenplay but I’d like her to do it because she

enjoys it and work for relatively little. It will be preposterous to

assume that the late Christina Grimmie can ever be replaced by her

YouTuber colleague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Alvord[Tiffany

Alvord] or even by Taylor Swift, despite the fact that all three were or

are wonderful singers.



Actors should become amateurs and work for fun on amateur films they

like by amateur writers, who like me, write mostly fanfic and often

crossovers and even real person fiction. As much as I like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_the_Frog[Kermit the Frog] and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luke[Lucky Luke], I wish Chuck

Norris and Summer Glau to

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Muppets-Show-TNI/Summer-Glau-and-Chuck-Norris.html[star

along them], because the latter two are equally as awesome even if real.

Just like the old show

https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/The_Muppet_Show[_The Muppet Show_]

featured celebrity guest stars as themselves, and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street[_Sesame Street_] has been

doing it since its inception in 1969.



In Ancient times, most philosophers were entertainers who collected

donation money after their performances, and in fact were closer to

today’s entertainers than our contemporary ivory tower professional

philosophers. See:



* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBIxGjSHzF8[Mel Brooks’ Stand up

philosopher]

* https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/peter_ustinov_161259[Peter Ustinov:

"If Botticelli were alive today he’d be working for Vogue"]

* https://www.shlomifish.org/humour.html#if_ayn_rand_was_born_in_the_1990s["If

Ayn Rand was born in the 1990s she would be Christina Grimmie"]

* http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4229[ESR’s post about why most classical

music is a bunch of museum pieces]



Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee are the last in the line of master

professional warriors (believed to have passed through

http://shlomifishswiki.branchable.com/Saladin_Style/[Saladin] himself -

one of the greatest and most underrated

https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-cards-on-the-table-2019-2020/#hacking-heroism[hackers]

of all time). However, I believe that some of the newer amateur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_martial_arts[Mixed Martial Arts

(MMA)] fighters could have

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/show.cgi?id=sharp-english-play-to-lose[defeated

even Bruce Lee].



The better the former professional actors like Emma Watson, Sarah

Michelle Gellar, Summer Glau, and Chuck Norris had become the more they

were resented, hated, envied and mistreated. Until it hit their breaking

point and they got angry and burst in rage against their mistreatment.

Simply because they were professionals and worked for as much money as

possible.



It is possible that the reason why it seems like the

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/facts/Chuck-Norris/[Chuck Norris

Facts] have made

https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-cards-on-the-table-2019-2020/#Chuck_Norris[a

comeback] recently, is because Norris has decided to play in roles he

liked, even if he got paid little or not at all, or was paid after the

fact. He became a happy and respected amateur. I won’t be surprised if

he sometimes agrees to star in local school plays, or otherwise star in

roles that may seem almost completely unlike his traditional Hollywood

image.



But for now I’ll write my real person fic on singers and YouTubers. I

already have one more factoid about Taylor Swift and there likely will

be more. I assure you that for a long time you won’t see a YouTube video

"Why people won’t listen to Taylor Swift’s songs any more?". Poor

Taylor! I’m sure she won’t survive reading this new Taylor Swift

Factoid, and sue me immediately. (That was irony.)



[id="emma_watson"]

Emma Watson

-----------



image::./emma_watson_capt_img.webp[Emma Watson Captioned Image]



Emma Watson is no longer hirable in Hollywood despite the fact that all

her films were commercial successes. And it’s because she too became far

too powerful and competent for the incompetent and envious professional

film makers and critics. But like great action heroes (or "hackers")

of the past like https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-all-cards-on-the-table-2013/#david_and_goliath[David who fought Goliath], its modernisation in the

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs[Indiana Jones gun scene], or

the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eont_yEGZs[trailer for "Hamlet"

starring Arnold Schwarzenegger], she will not accept her fate, and bend

and break the rules to carve her unique destiny.



She will give Hollywood the fat finger and start producing fan

screenplays (in any conceivable format - not only the overly strict, and

pedantic Hollywood screenplay format, which is hard to get right) that

she will sponsor out of her own pocket. They will depict her as the

sexy, competent, bad-ass ass-kicker that she and her fans know she is

rather than her traditional sheepish and recessive (but not quite)

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hermione_Granger[Hermione Granger]

image, and these videos will be available free of charge on YouTube.

Many awesome male and female actor hackers who used to be household

names but are now unhirable for becoming too competent, honest and

intimidating, will follow suit.



She might opt to make the material available first under relatively

restrictive licences such as

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/[CC-by-nc-sa] or even

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_rights_reserved[All rights reserved]

and ask to collect "ransom" money to make it

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/[CC-by] or even

https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/[CC0 / Public Domain]. She might

give access to large data files and high quality videos for a pay or

sell exquisite collectors sets (just like Nine Inch Nails did with

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_I%E2%80%93IV[Ghosts I-IV]).



There are other business models:



* https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand[nayafia/lemonade-stand: A

handy guide to financial support for open source]

* https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/web/models-for-commerce/["Alternative"

Profitable Models for Web-based Commerce]



As inconceivable as it seems, I think a

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_%28franchise%29[Terminator]

parody with Emma Watson as the evil terminator, and Arnold Schwarzenegger

trying to protect from her has a great potential. And I already have

written crossovers starring her in anything from an

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/Emma-Watson-applying-for-a-software-dev-job/[attack

of the software industry’s hiring process]; to a

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Muppets-Show-TNI/Harry-Potter.html[crossover]

of Harry Potter, Sesame Street and other sources of inspiration ; as

well as naturally

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Selina-Mandrake/cast.html[_Selina

Mandrake_] which is a self-concious parody of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer[_Buffy_], mashed

up with Judaism and Israelism, as well as

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine[Star Trek DS9],

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_Bride_%28film%29[The Princess

Bride], and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers[The Three

Musketeers].



Hollywood will soon be terminated as an inefficient and lazy oligopoly

with relatively few remaining active franchises, few remaining able and

competent actors who quickly will follow suit, and a flood of

indistinguishable high budget comic books movies with incompetent and

unattractive actors who didn’t have the sense and competence to become

YouTubers, empty cinemas, and boring "original" films. Either that or

it too will convert to the amateur and

https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-cards-on-the-table-2019-2020/["open"]

models, which like the signed artists labels of the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recording_Industry_Association_of_America[RIAA]

mostly get out of the way (minus some censoring of YouTube content, both

"copyright-violating" and legitimate, which I hope and plan will stop

soon).



If Taylor Swift was able to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcIy9NiNbmo[depict] her female friends

and herself as bad-ass modern day female warriors, and still continue to

outsell her shows, so should

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/facts/Emma-Watson/[Emma Watson],

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Michelle_Gellar[Gellar], or

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/facts/Summer-Glau/[Summer Glau],

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Fox[Megan Fox], or

https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-all-cards-on-the-table-2013/[Jennifer

Lawrence], or

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/facts/Chuck-Norris/[Chuck

Norris], or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise[Tom Cruise], or

countless other awesome hackers who would prosper more as amateurs,

rather than in the increasingly money-hungry, soul-sucking, and mind

destroying, professional Hollywood.



Hasta la vista baby! We will be back.



More real person fan fiction. I guess I must never do that.



[id="rpf_in_conclusion"]

Real Person Fiction in Conclusion

---------------------------------



Real Person Fiction is a time honoured tradition which was

already practised by the Judean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevi%27im[Nevi'im]

(a word which was somewhat mistranslated as "prophets") who

spoke prophecies of their past and contemporary fellow men

(both positively but often negatively), and by the ancient Greek

scholars (e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato[Plato]'s

dialogues with his mentor Socrates are clearly RPF). It

continued to be practised throughout history, with relatively

few moral obstacles until in the 20th century, fan fiction and

RPF started being held in contempt due to copyright maximalism.



I now realise that fan fiction and especially real person fiction can also be

used to help combat the flood of new characters and names that plagues many

more "original" stories. People generally have a rough concept of what

characters such as Chuck Norris, Emma Watson,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman[Richard Stallman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses[Moses], or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Piggy[Miss Piggy], are like and generally

can better remember them because they thought about them a lot.



The reason some people criticise RPF writers of being villains is

due to the fact famous actors have been facing increasingly harsh

treatment due to the professional (= working for money), non "open",

and "original" nature of Hollywood that has been declining in

effectiveness following the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source[open source] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_content[open content]

trends. (Whether they are fully "free/open" or only partly so

- see https://features.slashdot.org/story/13/01/06/163248/richard-stallman-answers-your-questions[Richard Stallman’s opinion about the Creative Commons licences].)



[id="commercial_fanfic"]

Addendum: Commercial use of characters, concepts and worlds

-----------------------------------------------------------



Before the current regime of copyright maximalism, copyright applied

only to text and its printing and reprinting rights. Following a

https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/2013-February/008338.html[discussion]

on the Creative Commons mailing list I have placed

https://www.shlomifish.org/meta/copyrights/#characters_concepts_plots_and_worlds[the

copyrights of my characters, concepts, plot elements and worlds] under

the CC-by licence.



It is well known that most creators of commercial worlds effectively

cannot and would rather not enforce noncommercial fan art (fiction,

videos, games, etc.) of their worlds. But why not also allow such works

to be sold commercially, be filmed, or otherwise make a profit?

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/show.cgi?id=perl-petdance-thousand-flowers[*Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom!*]



For example, following

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett[Terry Pratchett]’s death,

his daughter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhianna_Pratchett[Rhianna

Pratchett], who is his inheritor, announced that she closes her father’s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld[Discworld] franchise for

commercial and official sequels. But why not allow commercial and

*unofficial* sequels, prequels, fan art, forks, crossovers / mashups, etc.? Put

the franchise under CC-by and tell the fans that they can build fan art

above it as they please and *request* (not force - see

https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-cards-on-the-table-2019-2020/[Saladin-style])

that a donation be made to the Pratchett’s estate, if there was a

substantial profit.



Yet another case of franchise copyrights abuse is that of

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/16/harry-potter-warner-bros-wizard-fan-festivals[“Harry rotters: Warner Bros cracks down on Potter fan festivals in US”] where

Warner Bros (who bought the rights to the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter[Harry Potter franchise])

demanded that Harry Potter conventions / festivals not use any names

from the books. I have no idea how this demand will be “good for the

people”, help make the world a better place, and/or

https://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html[“help someone get laid”]. It

just seems like a https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wheatons-law[dick move]

by some overzealous lawyers.



image::./Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day.webp[Talk like a pirate day]



And now for the other side of the coin, according to the English

Wikipedia,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day[International

Talk Like a Pirate Day] (which is a fun holiday which I celebrate on the

Internet, and have also created some

https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/facts/[related fan art]), had

become successful in part because its copyrights or trademarks have not

been enforced, which led to a "viral" growth.



It is likely that creators of commercial franchises would benefit more

by making their worlds, characters, and concepts unrestricted, rather

than being territorial around them. Some of my Internet friends agree

with me that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceballs[Spaceballs] is a

better film than the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Trilogy[original Star Wars

trilogy]. However, being a parody and therefore

https://www.shlomifish.org/meta/FAQ/#why_fan_fic[fan art], it builds

upon the original work and depends on it.



We are all

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants[*standing on the shoulders of giants*],

so why not let others stand on ours?