Microsoft Announces It Will Shut Down Ebook Program And Confiscate Its Customers' Libraries

Microsoft announces it will shut down ebook program and confiscate its customers' libraries

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

Thaw

My first Moomin fic! I’ve seen a few posts in the Snufkin tag about the idea that Snufkin doesn’t return with the spring, he brings spring himself, and after watching “Moomin and Little My’s Adventure,” I had an idea of how to play with that concept a little more. I’m sure someone out there has done this before, but I hope you like my take on it!

Summary: After Little My is frozen by the Lady of the Cold (The Moomins, Ep 22), Moomin and Too-Ticky try to warm her up, but are unsuccessful. Will Little My be a block of ice forever?

“She’s still frozen!” Moomin fretted, staring down at Little My. He and Too-Ticky had placed her in front of the wood stove in the bath house, wrapped her up in blankets, and had even taken turns hugging her small, cold form, but she hadn’t warmed up even a little bit.

“I know,” Too-Ticky said, brow furrowed. “I don’t know what else to do, though. The Lady of the Cold is very powerful - I’m not sure even the Hobgoblin could undo her magic if he were here.”

Moomin made a distressed noise. “We can’t just leave her like this, though!”

“We might not have a choice,” she sighed.

“Well - well - oh!” His ears perked up as an idea suddenly struck him. “If there’s a Lady of the Cold, is there also a Lady of the Warmth? I bet she could de-ice Little My!”

“If there is, I haven’t heard of her,” Too-Ticky said thoughtfully. “But I suppose it does make sense.”

[read more]

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(a week old comic that i forgot to post and saw it in my folders dying)

I’m just going to leave this here…