the box social by james reaney. i remember we all had to silently read it in class, and you would hear the moment everyone reached the Part because some people would audibly go “what”
i can’t believe Roald Dahl’s “The Landlady” wasn’t already mentioned
and also it’s not so much unsettling as more absurdist but “The Leader” by Eugene Ionesco definitely made me go wtf
I read Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer In A Day” in seventh grade (it wasn’t assigned, I was just going through my textbook for new stuff to read) and as a bullied kid with SAD, it Fucked Me Up.
and this story that I can’t remember the name of and can’t find, though it might be by O. Henry? it’s about a bunch of demons who want to stop Santa Claus from going through with Christmas, and he must travel through the mountains they inhabit to escape their vices? (good christ I can’t remember the name for the life of me)
The City (195) Ray Bradbury. An intense commentary on colonialism and space exploration. I read it for a sci fi survey class.
Another short story I read in that sci fi class was Vaster than Empires and More Slow (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin. A commentary on humanity and how human we believe ourselves to be. Also, an interesting commentary on mental health.
In the Woods Beneath the Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom, written in 1947 by Ango Sakaguchi. It made my skin crawl the first time I read it.
Also going to recommend For A Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny, a commentary on whether AI can become human in a future without humans: http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt
Valuable information if some of your prized books were affected by recent flooding. The video even shows you what to do if you can’t dry the book out right away.
Oh - and it’s also busy downgrading many 4K titles to HD again
You know how some people like to say that physical media is dead and streaming is the future? Well, Apple is doing a pretty good job right now of proving that theory well and truly wrong.
Reports have started to emerge of Apple completely deleting films from iTunes accounts even when they’ve been bought, not merely rented. And when people complain about this, they’re receiving an astonishing message from Apple telling them that iTunes is just a “store front,” and so Apple isn’t to blame if a film studio decides it no longer wants to make its titles available on iTunes.
Even worse, it seems that if bought film titles are removed from your account you may not even be entitled to get a refund for them. When an iTunes user in Canada complained to Apple that their initial offer of a free $5.99 rental hardly seemed suitable recompense for him having three bought films summarily removed from his account, Apple replied that “our ability to offer refunds diminishes over time. Hence your purchases doesn’t meet the conditions for a refund.”
The Canadian user was offered a further two free rentals as compensation. But, of course, as well as being far less in monetary terms than the films user had bought, having short-term rental rights to a film is very different indeed from owning a film.
While I’m hearing from others who fortunately did get a refund for their deleted films, the bottom line in all this is that Apple appears to be openly saying that if you buy a film on iTunes, you don’t really own it at all. It may only stick around in your iTunes account for as long as the studio who really owns it decides it wants it to stick around in your iTunes account.
The Canadian user suffering this issue was pointed to this page of Apple legalese in the response where he was told that he wasn’t entitled to compensation for his lost purchases.
I’m also starting to receive reports today of the recent return of another major issue with iTunes movies: the downgrading of 4K HDR films to HD. This started happening in 2017, just after the Apple TV 4K launched, as reported here. At that point Apple suggested that there was some sort of labeling issue (where films said they were HD on their header page, but played as 4K) that they managed to (largely) fix. And it seems that the return of this issue may still be responsible for some of the “lost” 4K movies Apple TV 4K users are seeing now.
This doesn’t seem to explain all of the 4K to HD switches, though. It seems that some are down to Apple’s original policy of offering free HD to 4K upgrades of films no longer applying to titles bought in HD outside of iTunes. Say, via the iTunes-compatible Movies Anywhere platform. Though I am recently hearing from people saying that films bought on other iTunes-compatible platforms in 4K are also now only appearing in HD on iTunes.
In fact, I have even been contacted just today by an iTunes user who tells me that dozens of films he owns in iTunes — many of which were actually bought in iTunes — have stepped back on his Apple TV 4K to HD, having previously being available in 4K. This includes titles that are still available in 4K on VUDU.
It’s worth noting that the specific incident of films being completely deleted I refer to in this article happened in Canada; it’s possible that iTunes users in the U.S. and elsewhere haven’t experienced the same issue (yet…) due to differences in film rights between different territories.
But actually these sorts of regional rights differences merely underline the fundamental point Apple seems to be doing its best to confirm right now: That the only way you can be sure you own anything is if you’re physically holding it in your hand.
I’ve asked Apple for comment on these iTunes issues, and will provide an update if they come back with anything worth sharing. In the meantime, though, if you’ve experienced either films you bought disappearing entirely from iTunes, or films that once appeared in 4K now only appearing in HD, please let me know (with details, if possible, of whether you bought the title from within iTunes or via another compatible platform) via the Twitter account shown at the bottom of this article.
You don’t own anything that has DRM – not movies, not ebooks, nothing.
If you go to libraries and if you shop at Thriftbooks (both of which I recommend) then you may already know this fact. But if you don’t, let me enlighten you;
These places are breeding grounds for BED BUGS.
No this is not me telling you to stop. No this is not me calling that places dirty or gross. This is just the consequence of book sharing. Because these books trade hands and houses in a wonderful and perfect system of intellectual freedom. And I think that’s beautiful. But when a book trades houses that many times it’s prone to pick up something. That something is usually bed bugs.
Due to their natural structuring, books are ideal homes. And once a book returns to the library or the warehouse, these bedbugs wiggle out and find more places to burrow and breed.
And here’s another fun fact. Unlike ants, bed bugs are not social insects. They don’t like each other. So if you think you can just put down a single trap and catch them all, you’re wrong. They don’t work like that. If you poison one, it won’t go home and do a secret handshake with a hundred other of its friends. It’ll just die. If you kill one, you’ve only killed one.
Why am I telling you this? To scare you? To ward you away? Of course not. I’m just here to make sure you’re aware AND to introduce you to something that could save you a shit ton of grief.
The moment you bring the book home or take it out of its packaging, PUT THAT FUCKER INTO THE FREEZER.
NO. THAT’S NOT A JOKE. MOVE THE LEAN CUISINE OUT OF THE WAY AND POP THAT SUCKER INTO THE FREEZER!!!
Extreme cold and extreme heat kills bed bugs. And since we’re not Trump and holding book burnings is generally looked down upon, we do the next best thing. Freeze it. No, it won’t damage the book. A few days in there will only leave it cold and bug free. But if you’re worried, pop it into a large Ziplock before you do.
Read safe and stay bug free, my bookish friends! 📚📚📖
I couldn’t find a summary that wasn’t spoiler-y so I’ll give you a brief summary of it from reading just this one.
This ones is about 4 teenage gals who deliver papers (kinda obvious I guess?) anyways they run into a bit of trouble and end up discovering something out of this world.
This is actually one of my faves so def check it out!
>>CBZ Here!<<
Just click to download it, then you can open it in your chosen program, I use Sumatra PDF to read my comics on my laptop def check it out if you don’t have anything for CBZ files, it works for a lot of files actually.
Xhea has no magic. Born without the power that everyone else takes for granted, Xhea is an outcast—no way to earn a living, buy food, or change the life that fate has dealt her. Yet she has a unique talent: the ability to see ghosts and the tethers that bind them to the living world, which she uses to scratch out a bare existence in the ruins beneath the City’s floating Towers
This sounds really darn good, I might read it after I finish Chaos Walking lol
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