ed_rex

One of the things LJ has that I don't think DW does, is feeds from such things as Scott Adams' Dilbert. I can't much abide Adams' politics, but his comic still makes me laugh more than most, and so when reading my LJ friends' page, I have for years clicking the link that would take me to the latest installment of his comic.

But, I've been ridiculously busy of late; keeping up with my reading has been a matter of desperate baling while the waters pour over the gunnel's at best.

And so it was that, maybe four or five weeks ago, I decided to just skip a Dilbert as it came down my feed. And then I skipped another, and another, and another. And cetera.

Three weeks into the experiment, I realized that I hadn't missed his cartoon at all. And a week or two after that — tonight — I said to hell with it. If I'm not going to read the damned thing, I might as well unsubscribe.

And so I did. Farewell, Mr. Adams!

First in a projected (if irregular) series of thoughts on the new e-conomy and the coming Triumph of what is sometimes (quite wrongly) called Western Civilization. The below was original posted at Edifice Rex Online on December 14, 2012. And yes, the book was just as good when it finished (satisfyingly, with a proper climax to this story, and yet with a clear sign that there is more to come, as with any good entry in a series).

How to defeat piracy and keep your readers happy

I'm more than halfway through the new novel by the excellent story-teller Kristine Kathryn Rusch. As I fully-expected, Blowback is proving to be a hell of a page-turner — or rather, a hell of a screen-changer.

"Screen-changer"? Okay, I'm sure there's a better term out there. What I mean is, I bought Blowback as an electronic book, not paper book.

I pretty much fell in love with e-books from the moment I bought an reader just over a year ago, but it's been a problem getting books for it. Too often, new books are either not available in electronic versions in Canada or else they are available but encumbered by Digital Rights Management systems that don't play nice with my Linux-based operating system.

So it felt almost revolutionary to be able to simply buy, and then read Rusch's new novel without either stealing it or jumping through a myriad of electronic hoops in order to do so.

Defeating Piracy: Kristyne Kathryn Rusch is doing it right.

But what about you folks? Better to curse and criminalize torrenters, or make it easy for them to pay for the material when they're of a mind to and/or can afford it?