In the singularity, the “cure for death” is a series of digital backups …

Ported from S-is-For-Somewhere.
On Wednesday I [legitimately] finished Cory Doctorow’s Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom (available in loads of downloadable formats [free]) – read as an etext on my ipod touch. I’d argued before my uncertainty that the broadly sermonized smell and weight of a book-proper was all it was cracked-up to be, but [...]

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Print, beware! — &c — “pure digital”

[ported from S is For Somewhere]
– have been participating in fairly entertaining trolling on PubLib (Public Library Listserv) (entitled: “Missing the Boat (or at least Getting Wet)”) regarding the threat of irrelevance to libraries who resist digitization. Trust me, while it sounds dull (lowercase-d) in hindsight, when at an isolated reference desk, defaming sacred cows at [...]

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Zamyatin’s tangible threat that 2+2=4 [yikes]

Originally @ S-is-For-Somewhere
I’m admittedly biased against DRM-locked digitized books and audio, and so when it was announced that Amazon–which, otherwise, I like a ton–axed copies of 1984 from owners’ kindles, I was less at odds with the particular action than what it meant & symbolized regarding threats to ownership and autonomy in the digital culture.
Skim “Why [...]

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