Like, the Flint water crisis, right? I just read an estimate that it would take $55 million to bring clean water back to Flint. That sounds like a lot of money until you consider that’s less than a tenth of a billion dollars. Jeff Bezos is worth $118 billion. For less than .05% of his net worth, Jeff Bezos could bring water back to an entire town. At the most money I have ever had in my bank account, .05% of it could buy me like a burger. And not even a particularly nice one.
And let’s say, yeah, the ultra-rich are soulless monsters devoid of empathy or altruism. For .05% of his net wealth, Jeff Bezos could completely turn his public image around. Instead of being the asshole who exploits his workers, suddenly he’s the unlikely hero who saved an entire town.
Like
How do you have the power to become a hero at practically no personal cost and just
squirrel girl is canonically more powerful than thanos
if anyone is wondering “how the fuck?”: this was a pretty complicated thing that marvel set up, where they evaluated each hero and villain’s capabilities based on who they defeated, how they defeated them, who they were defeated by, and so on.
except, as it turns out, squirrel girl has defeated a LOT of powerful villains. case in point, her very first appearance has her solo-defeating doctor doom, without the help of iron man (who was nearby). this was also one of the few occasions where doom was defeated and it WASN’T a doombot. this turned squirrel girl into kind of a meme once the story hit the internet for obvious reasons, even though this story was just a one-shot. so then marvel brings her back, and has her defeat three villains in one comic, INCLUDING THANOS. (they even had other characters confirm that it wasn’t a trick, it wasn’t a fake thanos, that was actually thanos and he lost to squirrel girl because she set squirrels on him.)
the result? squirrel girl always wins. if there is an argument about “who would win?”, and squirrel girl is one of the options, then she wins by default because she’s squirrel girl. and this means that squirrel girl has to be the most powerful character in marvel by raw stats, because she always wins. you genuinely can’t beat squirrel girl.
by the by: she’s coming to the mcu soon in the new warriors tv show. that should be entertaining.
You don’t own your ebooks with DRM. You’re merely
licensing the privilege to read them. Some readers overseas have learned
this the hard way (yet again) now that Nook is going out of business in
the United Kingdom. But don’t worry, they’re working to let you maybe possibly transfer all those books you bought.
The Register and TechDirt brought this notice from Nook’s UK site to our attention (emphasis mine):
Effective from March 15, 2016, NOOK will no longer sell
digital content in the United Kingdom. The NOOK Store on NOOK devices
sold in the UK, on the UK NOOK Reading App for Android, and at nook.com/gb will cease operation.
To
meet your digital reading needs going forward, NOOK has partnered with
award-winning Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand to ensure that you
have continued access to the vast majority of your purchased NOOK Books
at no new cost to you. Further instructions on how to transfer
your NOOK Books to a new or existing Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand
account will be sent to you by email over the coming weeks. Please
ensure that you look out for these emails as they will contain important
information on what to do next.
Your action is required.
“…continued access to the vast majority of your purchased NOOK Books…”
They’re not even promising that you’ll be able to transfer all your books!
Digital rights management (DRM) is absolutely crippling our ability
to preserve digital knowledge for the future. And it’s half the reason I
prefer deadtree books.
Even when it’s an accident (like when Amazon deleted everybody’s copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farmfrom their Kindles) it shows just how little control we have over the books we “buy” from digital retailers.
I keep forgetting that this is a thing that isn’t widely known outside of libraries, the mentality of publishers that electronic media is being “lent” to the buyer, rather than actually becoming a thing you own.
This really bothers me on an accessibility level, bc my Kindle having everything on it makes it accessible to me in my tiny house, with my busted back. I don’t have to get up to get another book. I don’t have to reserve space I don’t have for books. I don’t have to carry a bunch of heavy books when I’m already managing my wheelchair etc while traveling.
This is such a problem.
My husband has complicated allergies. Book ink and the formaldehyde in the paper is a major issue for him. But an ereader works great!
Richard Stalman wrote an article about this back in the 90s called The Right to Read, IIRC.
For anyone who reads sci fi and fantasy, Baen/Tor (who publish a LOT of SF/f, including my beloved Vorkosigan Saga) sell most of their own ebooks on their own site unless the author has a special agreement, and all their ebooks are DRM free. They’re available in a bunch of different formats depending on what kind of ereader you have. Some other publishers also do, though I can’t remember which ones.
I know that nook, Amazon, et al are convenient aggregators, but it may be worth checking if the publisher sells a DRM free version directly if there’s a book you really wanna make sure you don’t lose access to. In addition to the nook problem listed above, Amazon have also been caught retroactively editing the content of books in people’s libraries after purchase. So. You know. Either find a DRM free version to start with, or be prepared to crack every book you buy.
DeDRM and Calibre are easy and essential. You can and should own your ebooks.
Reblogging both for the resources and because shit like this regarding DRM pisses me off so fucking much…
As always, RMS warned us about this shit.
My work colleague rib me a little about the fact that I’ve got a computer science degree but seem to shun a lot of new technology (I don’t have a smart phone) but they were stunned to learn they’re only renting the music and books they’ve “bought” digitally.
All the paper books, CDs and DVDs I have are basically a backup system for the things I really want to keep.
In fairness to my colleagues, we work in the charity sector and none of them spent the time when iTunes etc were really starting to take off being totally immersed in the academic side of it all.
(My Mum used to moan about not having Facebook messenger on her phone, but she’s pretty glad now that I wouldn’t install it for her after the Facebook shenanigans got more widely known. Did I watch too much X-Files as a kid and get paranoid? Maybe? But when it turned out the CIA had been spying on folks through webcams, I wasn’t worried for myself (other than like, not being of interest to them) because ever since I got my first USB webcam, I’ve been covering the lens or turning it to face the wall – I just assumed that some l33t h4x0r could have been watching anyway.)
That moment when past you has ordered a thing and you had forgotten. Thanks past-Rachel! #PacificRim #PacificRimUprising http://bit.ly/2mODNGS
