Rain Makes Applesauce

sailorgallifrey:

kithnkin:

stfuconservatives:

iphysianthe:

my mom’s argument against piracy is “well what if you wrote a book and one person bought it and then hundreds of people got to read it for free and you didn’t make any money!”

MOTHER YOU HAVE JUST DESCRIBED

LIBRARIES

Libraries: the original file-sharing program.

…Which also are under attack, or at least are the first to get funding cut, even before schools.

This.

You want some digital rights scary from the library world?  EBOOKS.

Right now, a library can buy a print book from anywhere for the same price as your average guy on the street and its theirs to circulate until it gets stolen, destroyed, or removed from the collection.

eBooks?

1) A lot of publishers sell eBooks to libraries for more than they charge average consumers.  That 9.99 bestseller?  Could cost your library $20. (Right now, most libraries get discounts for buying print books.)

2) One publisher - HarperCollins - has instituted a 26-use limit on their eBooks.  After 26 checkouts - poof!  The books just disappears.  Got 27 people on the list for that bestseller?  Better pony up for another copy.

3) Two of the biggest publishers  - Simon and Schuster and Macmillan - will not sell eBooks to libraries AT ALL.  Why, hello, censorship!

4) eBooks for libraries are managed by outside vendors who require yearly service payments.  If a library loses its print books funding, sure, there are no new books, but you’ve still got all the old books on the shelf.  If you accumulate an eBook collection of 10,000 volumes but lose funding ONE YEAR and cannot pay the bill, your entire collection vanishes, just like that.

Publishers have never liked libraries, despite all evidence pointing to libraries helping, rather than hurting, publishers.  (Almost every book I own, I own because I read that author at a library first.)

So, yeah, enjoy libraries while you’ve got ‘em.  Funding problems are scary, but this kind of digital censorship is way, way scarier.

I want to start a tumblr game of “Books that sound more interesting with the final letter knocked off.”

cuddlyjumper:

consultingmustache:

The Sound and the Fur

New Moo (New Moon)

The Tale of Peter Rabbi

(Source: hug-your-god-of-mischief)

We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one.

I met Ryan Jones three times.

At Dragon*Con 2008, I remembered seeing an amazing 10th Doctor and Rose running around. I only saw them from a distance, and was too shy to go up and say hi, but their in-character antics put a big grin on my face everytime I passed them by. Sometime over the course of the next year - and I don’t even remember how - I ended up in conversation with them and realized they were THAT Ten and Rose. We did the “see you at Dragon*Con!” thing you do with everyone. And at Dragon*Con 2009, I kept an eye out for them, but only ever saw them from a distance, never close enough to say hi. Until the very last day, just before it was time to go, I ran into them while walking through the half-empty food court. It wasn’t much - just a “Yay! Finally!”, a little bit of a chat, a “see you next year”.

And I did see him again the next year. Dragon*Con 2010 was a chance to expand on that first meeting. There was the totally accidental Prydon Academy group meetup on Thursday night. A great time doing group shots with the weeping angels on Friday night (I just remember how Essay couldn’t stop giggling!). The parade, the photoshoot, the group dinner. And on Monday afternoon, I spent the last few minutes of con sitting on the floor of the Marriott just talking with him and friends.

The next May, I went to TimeGate. A lot of friends from Prydon Academy had arranged to be there, too, and I remember thinking as I packed how nice it would be if Ryan and Essay could have made it too, though I knew they weren’t coming. I thought that again when I was at the con. Then I walked out of a panel and there they were. They’d totally kept it as a surprise, and what a fantastic one it was. That was the weekend where acquaintances became friends, and we all got a chance to spend time together in a way you couldn’t at a bigger convention. Taking over the Arby’s at lunch, talking about so many random geeky things, from the Star Wars universe to whether “Oregon Trail” should be remade in high-def (verdict: NO). Lots of time just hanging out on those big sofas. “Hitting snooze” on the convention, grabbing that last half-hour before I had to leave. If I hadn’t had that weekend to get to know him better, I wouldn’t be hurting nearly this much, but I wouldn’t trade a single one of those memories away.

It’s funny - everytime I saw him at a con, he was one of the last friends I saw before leaving. It’s like all along he was saying goodbye.

Three meetings. A handful of photos. A scattering of tweets and exchanged comments. Put like that, it doesn’t seem like anything.

But Ryan Jones was one of those rare, amazing people who just lit up a room whenever he came into it. When he met you for the first time, he made you feel like you were the person he’d been waiting his whole life to meet. He never encountered a stranger - everyone was just a friend he hadn’t known until that moment. I’ve known a lot of fascinating, clever people in my life, but what Ryan had was even more precious. When you were with Ryan, he made you feel like you were fascinating and clever. He brought out the best in everyone around him. He was one of those people that, whenever you think of him, you realize you’re unconsciously smiling.

As I left TimeGate that year, I turned at the door and snapped one last photo. It caught Ryan mid-hug, giving one more goodbye.

Goodbye, Ryan Jones. You definitely added to my pile of good things.