* GadgetBuilder.com * © 2008 John Moran
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When spring comes it's time to plant - I grew up on a small farm and this rubbed off on me. As a slacker, I garden with the idea of minimum work for maximum result. I compost directly in the garden (per "Ruth Stout's No-Work Garden Method"), the mulch minimizes weeds and keeps the moisture content stable ... things grow well. I don't grow all our food and I don't sell vegetables so this is a hobby garden.
Since it's my garden I raise what I like to eat. I buy seeds and some started plants; sometimes I save seeds to plant and give to others. Occasionally I save the seeds from purchased vegetables and try to grow them - sometimes this works and sometimes not. Generally my garden produces more than we can use so I give the excess away. The fence keeps the woodchucks and rabbits out, the strings with little flags attached keep the deer from helping themselves. Overall, for minimal cost in seeds and plants and an hour or two a week of work (mostly picking) I get a lot of satisfaction and save a lot on our grocery bill.
Gardening is hard work, so I have a helper. Here we are - Bumper the ©opyright ©at is reading the directions on the back of the seed packet and has just noticed the © mark -- made his ears stand up straight!
I've taken reasonable measures to keep animals from helping themselves but I simply assume passersby who see my garden won't walk over and help themselves. I'm happy to give them seeds and advice and sometimes share what I raise ... but since I did the work of raising the vegetables, they're mine to do with as I want. The seeds were gotten elsewhere but those who provided the seeds don't expect me to send them the vegetables I raised although I expect they'd be happy to hear that their seeds worked well for me. And when I give seeds away I don't copy the directions from the packet ... Bumper would object because of the ©
I think of this site as analogous to a stand next to the (information) highway. I supply seeds (ideas) not vegetables(gadgets) and visitors are welcome to these seeds - they're here for that purpose. The descriptions I provide are like the directions on the back of a seed packet - they don't provide every detail of how to grow a plant, just the particulars for that specific type. While the seeds aren't mine, the directions are mine. You supply the garden(machinery) and the work - you get the gadget. The seeds you find here are mostly from seeds I found in the same way you found my seeds - other machinist sites. I've tried to link to the originator in each case so you can go back and get the original - since it's your garden you grow what you like - just as in my garden I grow what I like. If one of my seeds works out well for you (or you improve the seed) I'd be happy to hear about it. If you have a machinist site and like my gadgets I encourage you to link to any page on my site - but NOT hot-link to my pictures NOR copy my text or my pictures for use on a competing site (when you build the gadget you can take pictures of your improved version). This site is my attempt to repay other machinists who did the work to produce and distribute seeds for my use.
As Milton Friedman said: "Ain't no free lunch!". My payment for the seeds I supply is the satisfaction I get from visitor counts - most visitors don't even realize they've paid. Occasionally I get a bonus when another hobby machinist sends a letter or a picture of a project inspired by my site.
My understanding of copyrighting of sites was that it is automatic and so I didn't explicitly assert copyright (as I do now, for the reason described here). Things went smoothly with my site for years, until May 2008 when I found many peculiar entries in my statistics as well as thousands of errors in the site error log. Not having run into this previously, it took me a couple days to understand that a blog site had copied five popular pages from my site and was hot-linking to my pictures. It is resolved now and I expect to be quicker off the mark if it happens again.
So, this is fair warning that if you copy my text or my pictures, when I find out I will contact your ISP with no prior warning; I and most ISP's lack a sense of humor concerning copyright infringement.
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