I think I figured us out. 

The reason writers complain so much about writing, but never give up on it, is because we’re just like a dog playing with a puzzle ball. 

We know there are treats in there and we will whine about the effort it takes to get them, but we won’t stop because things are happening is it a feeling of accomplishment–Nope, missed the mark, this scene is terrible. But if I try again, maybe– oh my god I’m the best writer ever the gods weep at my genius fuck yeah

Hands down the funniest thing I have ever heard at college was overhearing the following sentence at a conference:

“I asked him what his pronouns were and he said ‘uh, PhD.’”

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn’t making enough money, so they’re shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years, thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own those books.

When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn’t get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash refund for the price you paid.

People sometimes treat me like my decision not to sell my books through Amazon’s Audible is irrational (Audible will not let writers or publisher opt to sell their books without DRM), but if you think Amazon is immune to this kind of shenanigans, you are sadly mistaken. My books matter a lot to me. I just paid $8,000 to have a container full of books shipped from a storage locker in the UK to our home in LA so I can be closer to them. The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job.

https://boingboing.net/2019/04/02/burning-libraries.html

If you’ve got an ereader and want to actually own your books, I heartily recommend using cailbre to scrape the DRM off and so you can backup the files.

Cailbre d/l:

https://calibre-ebook.com/download

How to use cailbre to remove DRM:

http://www.geoffstratton.com/remove-drm-amazon-kindle-books

Seconding calibre as a brilliant tool for ebook management in general. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/caster-semenya-iaaf-cas-ruling-swiss-court-a8942291.html

From today, 6/3/2019