Internet Archive

Publishers are trying, and so far succeeding, to destroy the Internet Archive.  If they get their way, they will wipe out vast amounts of information that no longer exists in any other place or form.  They will also greatly decrease the value of the web as massive amounts of links disappear forever.

And these are the people who are supposed to be creating and maintaining works of knowledge.  These are the people -- currently trying to work great evil on humanity's knowledge base -- who are trusted to handle the flow of information.  It would seem this trust is misplaced.

For fucksake people, if you want to get rich, the last place to do that is making books. Go play with the stock market.

Monday Update 4-17-23

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Internet Archive
Review: "Grandma's Favorites"
Birdfeeding
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Help
Permafrost
Writing Blind Characters (58 comments)
Friday Five
Follow Friday 4-14-23: Avatar
Birdfeeding
Good News


There are two open epics at present.

"The Heart's Best Tenant" belongs to the Steamsmith. Charlotte has good ideas.

"Within the Souls of Men" belongs to Shiv. Shiv thinks like a cat to assess wildlife conservation techniques.


The weather has been mild here, a mix of sunny and cloudy days. We finally got some rain yesterday and the night before. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a flock of sparrows, a flock of mourning doves, a flock of assorted blackbirds, a flock of house finches, a flock of goldfinches, several starlings, two robins, two blue jays, a male and a female cardinal, a dark-eyed junco, and two fox squirrels. Blue grape hyacinths, forsythia, violets, tulips, anemones, cherries, crabapples, bluebells, lilacs, yellow bellflower, and celandine poppy are blooming. Daffodils are into their later-blooming varieties. Most trees and bushes at least have buds swelling. Last year's oaks are starting to leaf out.

Birdfeeding

Today is partly sunny, quite windy, and cool.

I fed the birds. I've seen a small flock of sparrows, several house finches, and a fox squirrel.

I started pulling dry stems from the outdoor planters and barrel garden. Some marigolds are volunteering in the containers. :D Some morning glories are volunteering in the barrel garden. <3 landraces.

EDIT 4/17/23 -- I cleared off more dead stems and leaves from the containers and barrel garden.

EDIT 4/17/23 -- I scraped up spilled sunflower seeds under the hopper feeder and carried several pots of them to scatter in the prairie garden.

The wind has died down somewhat. Highest was around 29mph according to our home weather station.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

Mutual Aid

A friend tipped me that their library has a shortage of mutual aid resources. Well, you can find what you need online if your library is also underserving this subject. Remember that the government and big business care a lot less about your neighborhood than you do. It's up to us to take care of ourselves and each other, because chances are, nobody else is going to do it.

( Read more... )

NFT Ebooks

The recent discussion about the attack on the Internet Archive and the nature of electronic reading material got me thinking.  I wondered if there's a better way, so I went out and looked.

Non-fungible tokens are electronic files turned into specific, individual, trackable products which can be bought, sold, and traded.  I wondered if this would work for ebooks, and yes it does.  Here is a comprehensive guide to NFT ebooks, how to make them, and where to find them.  These behave a lot more like paper books than the average ebook does.  However, at present they are all tied up with cryptocurrency and its chaos, which is a lot better in concept than in execution.  But the idea of object-like ebooks is out there, so folks could choose to develop this technology into a more stable and secure version based more on archiving information and circulating books than on trying to get rich quick.

And remember, if you don't like what other folks are doing in cyberspace, there's a Kickstarter project to support fans in making their own platforms and websites.

Today's Smoothie

Today we made a smoothie with:

1 cup kiwi-strawberry Snapple
1 cup Brown Cow vanilla yogurt
1 banana
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup ice

The result is a fairly bright pink, a little on the thin side, with a slightly tropical strawberry flavor.  This is a good all-purpose strawberry smoothie.