As a general rule, I make it a point to try to improve lives. It is my opinion that I have no right to make someone's life worse unless they are trying to do the same to me. Every once in a while, I fail in this endeavour. These times are painful to me, but they are more painful for the person I hurt. Here I would like to apologize for one such instance.

I received an email from "Ukko" about an article that she (I'm assuming gender here, though I may be wrong) had submitted to MAIL, on techniques for making Loop in Loop chains. The email was only a few lines; mystified, I went to the MAIL site to see what she was talking about. I found her article, and the first thing that struck my mind was "Hey - she stole those images from Spider's website." Note the verb I used: "stole". This is an unfortunate kneejerk reaction I've developed, ever since someone took all of Kusari's images and turned them into a booklet which he then proceeded to sell, all without Kusari's permission. Since then, I've assumed that any images I see in one place that I know belong to other people, have been stolen. Thus prompted into "alert mode", I skimmed the article (not read: skimmed). Said article was a complete guide to making Loop in Loop chains, and as such it perforce had to cover some of the techniques that I mentioned in my own tutorial. My eyes latched onto those brief segments and I thought "Ah ha! Not only is she stealing images from Spider; she's stealing text from me!" I proceeded to write a rather curt email to her telling her to take the article down until such point as she removed my material from it, as well as implying that anyone who reused material for a tutorial doesn't understand that which they're trying to teach.

Naturally, she was rather upset by that. She informed me that she had Spider's permission to use those images, and demanded that I show her the text that she had supposedly stolen from my site. Well, with one leapt-to conclusion shot down, I was a bit more careful in testing the basis for the other. Actually reading the article, I realized that here was in fact a tutorial that was not only unique and free of the onus of theft, but also complete, clear, and well-written. I'd made a doozy of a mistake.

I can't make up for the pain that I caused Ukko, but I hope she'll forgive me. I also hope that the rest of you in turn will wait a little longer before leaping to conclusions, lest you make the same mistakes that I did.