ebook piracy post rec

mirabella is so, so right about ebook piracy.

Now, you could make the point that every one of those thousand paperbacks has (presumably) already been bought once, and therefore represents a positive cash flow to the author at some point in the past; while the pirated e-books, by definition, are a commodity that has not resulted in cash flow, ever. This is, strictly speaking, true. But going from Point A - people are getting something for free that they really shouldn't be - to Point B - and therefore the author is being directly harmed by lost sales due to piracy - is like me saying the reason I'm not rich today is that everyone on Earth didn't send me twenty bucks for my birthday every year like my grandmother did. Worse, it's like me making a budget where I spend like every person on Earth is a potential source of twenty bucks every January 24th and then being surprised and pissed off when I come up short.

(no subject)

I promised marshtide a recap of the Japanese spa in Stockholm, which I will post along with some pictures later (hopefully tomorrow) - after I recover from the trauma of the trip.

It was traumatic. As we were stumbling exhaustedly onto the ferry Sunday night, I said to Wax, "Didn't I say something like 'At least everything can't go wrong!' before we left?" and she replied, "SO ALL OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT." We've officially decided to never go on vacation anymore (yet again, she said bitterly).

What did go right was DVDs. We went to the science fiction bookstore in Gamla Stan and picked up Kick-Ass and Watchmen (the latter was all Wax) for SEK 99 each, which is slightly more than 10€. DVDs are overpriced until several years after release in Finland though, more around the 17-25€ mark, so this was a steal. Also Bandits, the threesomey movie with Cate Blanchett and Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis, for 3€ on the boat back. I've actually been trying to buy that one at regular price the past few years and failing to find it.