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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

greenycrimson

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

dee-the-red-witch

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

#important #books

take-some-vampire-money-bro

@ all trans people about to attend online school:

This will visually remove your deadname from any webpage. Obviously switch it off if your parents wanna check up on your work, but yee here's the link fam!!!! BOOST THIS!!! SEND THIS TO ANY TRANS PERSON YOU KNOW WHO WILL NEED THIS

An easy to use Google Chrome plugin to automatically remove and replace deadnames

a-lot-of-ace-archive

This is really awesome!

zero-bean-deactivated20241210

i....hate my school. they blocked this. like, wtf?

connorsok

If your school has blocked this I recommend using ‘InteractiveFics’. Its originally used for changing Y/N to your own name but it has a separate option where you can change any word/name to what you want.

It has a less likely chance of being blocked so I thought I’d mention it.

catboymettaton

WordReplacer II works as well, though it’s not specifically designed for deadnames

hustleinatrap

save for yourself and for future generations

msillzie

reblog to save a life

jaeswavy

For any lovelies with graduations coming up 💕

s1uts-deactivated20250921

there was a girl in front of me who did this she looked great

labhrainn-munro

Need to show this to my girlfriend

zhongliremade-deactivated202102

If y’all ever need pictures of animals tucked into bed please do not hesitate to hit my line I have a very small folder specifically for that

zhongliremade-deactivated202102

Actually here you all go

cinemotionpicture

One of my favorite stunts ever executed in a movie is so simple yet incredibly groundbreaking and it’s in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door to reveal a full-color world.

The Wizard of Oz starts out in black & white — standard of the time and what people were used to.

But then after Dorothy lands and opens the door, she reveals not only the magical land of Munchkinland but also the magic of technicolor in one single shot.

Since technicolor was not very widely available prior to the Wizard of Oz’s release, for many people it would be the first time they were ever seeing a moving picture in color. What better way to pull it off than in a big reveal like that? Fantastic! I know by today’s standards this doesn’t seem like a lot for a movie, but this was a great trick given the technology they had. What a special way to bring some magic to audiences, especially in a time when things were really down in America during the Great Depression.

prismatic-bell

ALSO

This is the greatest special effect you never knew you were looking at.

The celluloid used as film at the time was thick and brittle. Splicing it was basically impossible. How to go from sepia Kansas to technicolor Oz? This was a problem that nearly sank that amazing reveal shot.

Until some crewmember said “why not just film it all in color and paint Kansas brown?”

That’s right. THAT WHOLE THING IS COLOR. ALL OF IT. Bobbi Koshay (Judy Garland’s body double) has been put in brown makeup to hide the pink of her skin. That dress isn’t blue and filmed in sepia, it’s an identical brown dress. The furniture? All painted brown. The walls and door were painted to match their color on the Kansas film rolls....a daunting task, because film at the time came out so incredibly dark that those lush Ruby Slippers were almost orange in real life, just to get that deep red color. (Early tests with actually-red shoes came out black rather than red!)

And it was done so well and so expertly that the only way to tell it’s even there is to get one of the 1970s or TNT prints where Kansas is black and white instead of sepia-tone (since the painted “sepia” will be out of place).

Today we could do this with a click of a button. Back then they had to invent a whole new set.

Drink your “respect the SFX crew” juice today!

madgastronomer

That’s so cool to know!

My mom likes to tell the story of when they first got a color TV in the late 50s or early 60s, and Wizard of Oz came on, and they were so excited to see it in color. They were so disappointed when the beginning was in B&W... and then the reveal happened, and they were totally delighted.

kabaks

we really do always win

justcatposts

He was so sad at the end 🥺

(Source)

arborealgargoyle

I made the absolutely fucktacular mistake of giving my dog buttons that I recorded words on to talk with and she keeps waking me up in the thrice damned wee hours o the night to tell me and doubtless she could not pOSSIBLY wait until morning to say that she wants to eat the cat’s food

arborealgargoyle

apparently when my sleep cycle is disrupted at a very precise interval my view of the universe fractures and alters because I may have not been religious before but now I believe deeply that god with a capital G denied Dogs with a lowercase d the ability to speak for a Reason and we should respect Her infinite wisdom on this matter

arborealgargoyle

I have soared too close to the sun, in my arrogance I have built a tower too high unto the sky- it is made of cheap plastic recordable buttons and it is about to topple and take human language, as my dog knows it, down with it

arborealgargoyle

Me: *is awoken to the sound of my own voice echoing in the dark passages of the night*

Me: How could I have laughed at Victor, how could I have scorned his anguish in the sight of his glorious but unnatural creation??? Only now do I understand, only now-

My dog in the background who has taken my voice as her own: dinner dinner dinner

astro-biologist

Calling anyone who's played or is a fan of D&D! I'm working on an art project and got stumped trying to pick colors. I'm doing some research on what colors people associate with different classes! If you have a second, I'd love it if you could take this survey for me! No pressure to fill every single blank out but anything you have an opinion on is appreciated 🥰 Reblogs are very very valued!!!

Hello! I'm doing some quick personal research on associations people make with classes and what they think of for each class! This will prob

thedevorak-deactivated20201227

source

ginazmemeoir

wHY DOES THIS HAVE JUST 308 NOTES???? THE ENTIRE WORLD SHOULD BE SHARING THIS. CHINA IS LITERALLY COMMITTING THE HOLOCAUST, ONLY THIS TIME ON MUSLIMS AND Y’ALL ARE SILENT?

i have 495 people following me right now, including several mutuals. i better see y’all reblogging.

metrotitans

People might not be reblogging this because the first tweet makes unnecessary (and untrue) Holocaust comparisons. Taken from @nat_slay on Twitter (I don’t know the original source):

The “ways to help” info seems good afaik but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong there too.

rainbowlack

As a Jewish person, I appreciate those saying that this is not okay and that it is misinformation. No, 6 million Uyghur Muslims have not been murdered.

And, as a Jewish person, I know that 6 million very well could be murdered. This is not another Shoah, but it very well could become another. As a Jewish person, I feel we must say “never again.”

Never again.

“Never again” does not mean “this event was so uniquely horrible, it could never happen again.” It means “this event was horrible, but not unique. We have to make sure it never happens again.”

Never again.

The Uyghur death count isn’t 6 million, that is misinformation. But “never again” means we have to make sure it doesn’t become 6 million.

If you are not Jewish or Romani, do not draw comparisons to the Holocaust. All that provides is shock value and misinformation. What you can do is support Uyghur Muslims.

The link to the original post doesn’t work—here are other sources:

Source from The Silhouette

Source from Business Insider

Source from Middle East Forum

Source from India Blooms

Source #1 from Jewish News

Source #2 from Jewish News

Groups to donate to:

Charity Right’s Food for Uyghurs

Uyghur Human Rights Project

Petitions to sign:

Petition 1

Petition 2

If you have more relevant resources, please share them. Petitions are likely meaningless in contrast to the Chinese government.

For those who are able to, take action. For those who are unable to take action, please share.

roger-taylor-owns-my-wigg

every person can feel freddie’s presence in their souls when they sing MAMAAAAAA UUHHHH, I DONT WANNA DIE, I SOMETIMES I WISH I’VE NEVER BEEN BORN AT ALL with all the air in their lungs i’m not joking

peachdisco

it’s fucking crazy to think about the amount of people who have sung bohemian rhapsody? like it’s such a unifying song, by nature of the fact that so many people know it. it holds so many good memories for me and other people. it’s a song you scream in the car with your friends while you drive around your boring hometown, it’s a song you drunkenly sing with your arm around your best friend, or a song you sing along to with strangers when it’s on in public. it’s bittersweet to think about freddie’s legacy carrying on like that through his masterpiece. freddie carries on because he’s a part of so many people’s good memories and bohemian rhapsody is a huge part of that.

deathbutwithfuzzyanimals

Reblog if you have sung bohemian rhapsody with your friends

reikah-deactivated20190906

every time i see this post i’m reminded of the video of 65,000 people singing bohemian rhapsody in near-perfect harmony

like, what other song can make that claim?

crewdlydrawn-deactivated2022072

Some of the highlights of that video include:

The crowd cheering after the first stanza when they realize what they’re all doing

So many people audibly ‘doing the guitar parts’… like ya do

The sheer number of voices joining the rediculous falsetto (thanks, Roger)

How they all start jumping at the ramp-up “so you think you can stomp me”

Hands up, hundreds, thousands deep for the final “ooooo”s and the last line to close the song

aces-to-apples

Only days before my state went into lockdown, “Bohemian Rhapsody” came on in the restaurant kitchen I’d just been hired at and, no shit, every single worker in that little diner started singing along. Me (the only queer afaik), the manager, all the other kitchen workers, the dishwasher up front, the two people on the counter, all but two of the men over 30. Just belting out Freddie Mercury at the top of their lungs. And you can bet when “sometimes I wish I’d never been born at all” came around, we every single one of us ramped up the intensity and basically made sure Freddie could hear us in the afterlife.