I just won a free taco for answering "Kurt Vonnegut Jr" correctly, because NOBODY ELSE READS.

keep not reading, America; your blank stares nourish me.

lol u so white after all

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008...-music-piracy/

;)


Q.E.D.

I know! I'm so sick of seeing Toni Morrison billboards everywhere. And what's up with Don Delillo making guest appearances on sitcoms? I can't even go to the grocery store without seeing some Nation Book Award winner on the cover of all the magazines. And can Leno go one fucking night without inviting an author to read a short story?

haha.. I support authors but on the real, lets not kid ourselves here, how much exactly DOES toni morrison make from a single book? Ten books? Shit even a thousand books? Lets also ask ourselves, what is Toni's intention as an author, is it to inspire us with her art or just to make money? If it were just to make money, couldn't she turn out thousands of pages of bullshit pulp? Wait, she takes her time? Maybe she cares more about the ART, and less about the money than some sanctimonious people here?

Again, if folks have the money, support your artists, but lets not get into a pissing contest here, neither should we point fingers at other people. People can support art a million ways, but as an artist what do we think Toni Morrison might prefer, that A MILLION PEOPLE buy her book so she can make $ and yet NEVER read it, or that a handful of people might get a free copy and read it and change their lives.

By the way, so what, IS THE FUCKING LIBRARY ALSO ROBBING AUTHORS TOO! Some people here need to get over themselves, they sound almost like sycophants to the publishing companies more so than supporters of the arts ;)

Because if a musician wanted to release their music for free, they would.

What?!?

Wait, musicians don't know about tape-trading or sharing music? Shit, could have fooled the fuck out of me ;)

Frankly, most musicians make most of their earnings from live gigs.
The very very lucky few (or crooked few, or sell-out few) make their money from record sales.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Cheetoh again.

I have the old cheaper one without ads. I'd get the paperwhite if I were buying now.

I'd imagine authors hating libraries as it buys and stocks single copies of books to be read over and over by millions of people. They sicken themselves thinking of all the lost sales.

if you'd like to engage in a discussion about this, and not an internet pissing match (e.g., "capitalist pigs vs. trotskyite pseuds") i'd be happy to explain how your post's irony supports a flawed argument (piracy is absolutely NOT like libraries).

but since i don't know what you really mean or intend, i'll save my breath and just post you a useful link instead:

http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.co...nt-from-piracy

This is awesome, by the way.

YES. yes it was great. with all the bullshit and smoke i forgot this. that was priceless.


it was pure wonderful irony.

do you know f. scott fizgerald is buried next to a gas station by the way? in silver spring, maryland.

ALSO. i dare anyone to tell me where walt whitman is buried. certainly not the panthéon like victor hugo. 'merica reserves its holy sites for politicians and military men. the only glory it recognizes.

lastly, while driving through baltimore looking for poe's grave, i'd be asking for directions, and people would reply "who? ----- poe? ----- was that a ball player?"

!!!

yes! but you gotta admit, she treats her writers like shit.

Well, I have a first generation Kindle Fire, a second gen Fire (which actually belongs to the lady, an Xmas present from moi), and a Paperwhite.

For me, the Paperwhite is really where it's at. It's pretty cheap if you don't get the 3G version, and it's the only one that actually takes into account the effect that bright screens have on the brain. Looking at anything that produces synthetic light just before bed interferes with the brain's production of melatonin, and can lead to sleeplessness and insomnia.

However, even the Paperwhite is not a good thing to be looking at in a completely dark room, and it can still have a damaging effect on both your eyes and the function of certain neurotransmitters connected with sleeping.

From my experience, the best thing for just before bed reading that anyone's come up with is white font on a black background, with very dim brightness. Even that sucks compared to reading a book with a lamp, which is great for sleeping. Not that you asked about sleeping.

Anyway, I think the Fire is the most worthless of them all. If you buy one, buy the cheapest possible one you can, and save up for an iPad 4 or an iPad mini. I have the 4th gen iPad (large) with retina display, and it now has a free kindle fire HD inside it. It doesn't have the eyeball friendly sheen of the Paperwhite, but any of the color Kindles are just future "Shoulda got an iPad" jokes in the making. Once you get one, and realize how much it actually does vs how much you wish it would do, you're gonna feel like a dunce.

And seriously, who the fuck would want to steal books? Authors (the vast majority of them at least) are retardedly underpaid, so much so that new authors are self publishing at record rates and taking the entire financial burden on themselves, just to get their name out there. More often than not, nobody even notices, and they keep their day jobs and are never heard from again.

I would never steal a book, and I only pirate music in a few circumstances:
1. I already own the music, but have lost or misplaced it.
2. A new album by a band I love is coming out, and I have placed an order for vinyl and cd copies, but a leaked torrent is available to satisfy me while I wait for my order.

That's it. Fuck stealing from artists. Stealing from corporations? Chain stores? Giant conglomerates? That is another matter entirely, and is objectively awesome... As long as you're not stealing books or music from those places.

Interesting link. Cheers.

thing is i might get an ipad cuz i miss reading magazines. glossy shit like wired, and the wire, and newspaper workday shit like the nation, and less stylish but awesome content like new scientist or (for the short stories & the occasional essay) the new yorker. and the new york review of books. i haven't read magazines in a long time mostly because i'm tired of keeping them around so i can reread them, and the piles of shit that form thereafter.

im thinking an ipad could fix that & solve the book problem too.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/next...533561885?mt=8

^ that'd be a good start

most of what the offer is shit (to me anyway) but there are a few gems; http://www.nextissue.com/partner-pricing/?tab=ipad

then there's the individual subscription route... anyway.... e.g.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/shop/subscr...l_subscription

http://www.thenation.com/50ways#

http://www.finddigitalmagazines.co.u...-subscription/

etc

Camden?

Also I see no reason for Walt Whitman to be considered anything but an American hero of the highest degree. He should be buried next to Lincoln.

Oh yeah, dude, you're looking at an iPad for sure. If you're at all worried about the cost, get a 32gig mini. I kinda wish I'd gone that route, but then my eyesight is terrible and I really do need a bigger screen for movies etc.

On another note, when the fuck is Scientific American Mind going to go e-friendly? You can only buy hard copies of that magazine, when bullshit like Psychology Today is digitally rampant!

I'd say base model memory and High PPI.

Me? I'm holding off of all iDevices until the next major revision of iOS.

i don't know if the mini would cut it to replace the pornographic feel of the magazine-reading experience. maybe i should go compare at the store.

what about the google nexus though? uh/?? cheap, large-ish--- got an ad for a $200 version today and it's better than the kindle fire and all that shit yeah? i'm thinking, for media-only it might be cool. ah, first world problems.

You'll notice the lower pixel density on the mini. The weight is nice, though.

And the nexus is cool but almost a year old now, there will be a newer version out in a couple of months.

ha ha ha-- i meant pornographic like wired infomercial articles for $20,000 home theatres and shit like that. that's 70% of what they do-- naturalize conspicuous consumption. (but i still like the other 30% which is a look at entrepreneurship and future trends etc).

new model: that's prolly why i saw the nexus ad for $200-- it's $250 elsewhere. i'll wait & see then.

Sure. Btw, you can do a really convenient one hand grip with the smartcover.

Not to be crass, but fuck that shit bro. The Nexus is a Samsung device, yeah? Well, I will not buy their products ever again. Maybe their tablet would be worth it if you only wanted to read, but if anything's going to satisfy to pornographic love you have for print media (which I totally understand by the way) nothing has a better chance than an iPad. Honestly, the mini is not that expensive, and it has the same stylish feel and lovely interface that has made me pretty much shun all other electronic products.

For some reason iPad/iBooks has actually re-kindled my love of the written word in a strange way. Don't get me wrong, though... Ain't nothin like the real thing, after all. But iPad makes it fun again. Probably because its a superior device in every way. If the iPad comes with a free kindle that is actually better than the fire, I doubt the nexus will be better, or even worth the saved money, which will turn into more money spent when you buy an iPad later on.

this is not revenge for me convincing you to buy the iphone 5, is it?

is it???

--

ha ha, no, okay, loud & clear, will save up for the next generation of this thing which will prolly be in the fall some time.

yeah i don't want the mini one since due to cost i'll likely end up adding a keyboard and using it to type shit on it. since i can prop it up like a real page & all.

re: nothing like a real thing-- shit, nothing like a garbage-free apartment to feel awesome. nothing like searching terms in a book in order to find a quote instead of thumbing through pages & pages. digital texts rule all. (sorry, paper!)

btw please go & write someting on the cheever short story thread, huh? don't leave evollove hanging.