a sneak peek at my bookstagram feed. i would really appreciate it if you gave me a follow there too! 💌
in the latest cyber-news: the internet archive has lost their case against 4 major publishing houses (verge article). they’re going to appeal, but this is still a bad outcome. the fate of the internet is currently hanging in the balance because 4 multibillionare publishing groups missed out on like $15 of combined revenue during the pandemic because of the archive’s online library service. it’s so fucking stupid.
for those who don’t know what the internet archive is, it’s a virtual library full of media. books, magazines, recordings, visuals, flash games, websites - a lot of these things either don’t exist anymore or cannot be found & bought. heard of the wayback machine? that’s part of the internet archive. it is the most important website to exist, and i don’t say that lightly. if the internet archive goes down, the cultural loss will be immeasurable.
so how can you help?
- boycott the publishing companies involved in this. they’re absolute ghouls, frankly, and don’t deserve a penny. the companies involved are harpercollins (imprints), wiley (imprints), penguin random house llc (imprints), and hachette book group (imprints). make sure the websites are set to your location as it may differ worldwide.
- learn to torrent. download a torrent client (i recommend transmission), a vpn (i recommend protonvpn - sign up and choose the area that’s closest to your continent/country), and hit up /r/piracy on reddit for websites. with torrenting, you can get (almost) any media you want for free in high quality, with add-ons such as subtitles, and with no risks of loss. i would also recommend getting into the habit of watching stuff online for free. the less you can pay to a giant corporation, the better.
- get into the habit of downloading and archiving materials. find a TB external hard drive, ideally the higher the better. it’ll probably cost around $60 for 1TB and continue to go up, but they’re so so useful. if you can’t afford a drive, look for any GB harddrives or memory sticks you have lying around and just fill them up. videos, pdfs, magazines, songs, movies, games - anything you can rip and download and fit on there, do it, because nothing is permanent.
- donate to the internet archive. this is the most important option on the list. the IA relies entirely on funding, and it’s going to need more to fight this case. whatever you can donate, do it. i promise it’s helpful.
and finally…
cannot stress enough that donating to the internet archive to help them appeal this without going broke is the most important thing you can do right now. my day job revolves around fulfilling digital article and book scan requests at an academic library and a huge part of that is borrowing from other libraries that do controlled digital lending (incl. the internet archive!). copyright law is already hugely restrictive on what we can and can't lend, and we absolutely don't have the option to pirate anything for our patrons due to being a large academic institution. it's difficult to overstate just how bad this ruling could end up being for libraries that have digital lending programs, esp ones that rely on CDR for old/archival/hard-to-find texts.
I'm incredibly fucking disappointed at the bootlickers in the comments claiming that the IA steals from small creators. Eliminating a valuable research, academic and cultural resource because you've bought into the fiction that "potential sales" are lost sales is exactly what these big corporations want. You aren't saving small creators by swatting down a non-profit, you're allowing ginormous publishing monopolies to consolidate even further while they smile a snake's smile over independent creators.
The Internet Archive is absolutely vital for my work and research. Without it, a good chunk of Welsh LGBTQ+ history would be inaccessible. The Welsh books hosted on IA are indexed and searchable, meaning any Welsh LGBTQ+ terminology can be searched for. Otherwise, me sitting down to read every. single. Welsh book ever published *just in case* it contains one of the terms in my data is an impossible task (Welsh books have been published since 1546) . In fact, this is something I refer to in my methodology for this very reason.
I'm also broke as hell rn but when I get the chance I'm gonna donate. Without IA, you can kiss goodbye to a *massive* chunk of academia. My lecturers use IA. So not just like, undergrads and PhD students, but seasoned academics will lose access to a major resource if IA stopped existing.
The argument of "potential sales lost" also makes no sense from an author's perspective. Published authors are usually paid an advance before publication. After that point, they would have to sell an obscene amount of books to qualify for extra pay from those sales, so many authors are unbothered by someone reading their book for free. Libraries allow people to read books for free and IA is essentially one giant library. It even has a feature where if you're reading a book and "check it out" for an hour, no-one else can read the book your reading until the time runs out. Just like a normal library. Potential sales lost to the company is just like when companies claim to have lost millions at a start of the year when they haven't actually lost any money at all. They just didn't earn as much money as they were predicting.
IA provides a vital service and we should be fighting to ensure it isn't lost.
Seconding all of the above -- Since the IA lost its case, I've noticed a number of books have rapidly become inaccessible for me. The negative impact this has had on my work can't be overstated, as I've been left without a crucial resource for my research. I don't believe there's a single article I've written that hasn't been impacted by this, with me often having to scrambling to get access to sources that are rare and/or our of print. I have the advantage of a well-stocked uni library that is good at ILLs, but this is a taste of what's going to come if this isn't resolved in the Archive's favor.
if you're learning how to cook or branching out or feel like you just are not a very good cook or can't cook at all it is so important to know that when experienced cooks say they're measuring with their heart they are lying to you. They are measuring with their intuition, instinct, and experience, all of which are built by following recipes (written or taught by family), experimenting a lot, or some combination of the two: no matter how they learned, they learned it through cooking way more than you have. If you're trying to cook based on instinct or the assumption that you should just be able to figure it out and you don't like how your food comes out or you don't know where to start, find recipes and follow them to the letter. There is nothing wrong with looking up how to scramble eggs or make a stir fry. It will make your cooking better and easier, I promise.
Oddly specific. Got a deposit for 6,837 today
fuck it, i never ever do those “reblog for X, this one really works!” posts, but this one doesn’t have any of that BS, this is just straight up wishing us good things; and then the comment doesn’t even say any of that either. Zero claims on this post, all positive vibes
May you end this week feeling ever more certain of a future you’ll love
you will live and you will say the wrong things and make mistakes and people will love you anyways.
i made this post because i've got so many friends that think saying something wrong in a conversation is the end of the world. it isn't. you'll be okay. you don't have to be embarrassed about every little thing. you are alive and doing things and speaking to people. you will make mistakes and you will live.
it's a new day + the sun rose + you're alive + you're alive + you're alive + your heart is beating + you're breathing + you're alive
Illustration by Robert Anning Bell
From and edition of The Tempest published 1901
Vaintas (detail) by Leo Putz (1869-1940)
oil on canvas, 1896
Roasted chicken, ginger, daikon, shiitake mushroom soup with lime, cilantro, broccoli sprouts, and rice noodles
Thank u for this contribution
Souphelia
OPhởlia
if you're just joining us, george takei is having to educate jk rowling on holocaust denial
That’s it, the Professor is truly the King of Sass
The letter didn’t come from the Nazi party, but from the publishing house which had expressed an interest in the German translation of The Hobbit. Tolkien’s response really is a thing of beauty, though, so it deserves to be quoted in its entirety:
25 July 1938 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter. … I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject - which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearings whatsoever on the merits of my work or its suitability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully
J.R.R. Tolkien.
(Letter 30)
The Hobbit wasn’t published in German until 1957.
This might just be the politest “fuck you” ever written.
W.h.a.t.
Not just “I wish I had Jewish ancestors, but I don’t,” but also “you do realize that’s not what ‘Aryan’ actually means, right,” and “you guys are making it pretty hard to be proud of my German heritage.”
Nazis: Are you Aryan?
Noted linguistics freak Tolkien: Are you?
*me, literally sick with want* whatever
Big hearty party decorations and Lily Vanilli bakery putting the cherry on top with a beautiful cake 🍒❤️