Interesting Links for 25-04-2012

[andrewducker]

• In Therapy Forever? Enough Already
  (tags: psychology counselling therapy )
• I read about the woman who gave her 7-year-old a breast-augmentation voucher, and now the screaming in my head won't stop.
  (tags: women PlasticSurgery children headdesk society )
• Even positive stereotypes can hinder performance (removes locus of control)
  (tags:

Comments

[cartesiandaemon]

"Tor drop DRM on their ebooks. Charlie Stross points out how this in their best interests."

That's pleasingly balanced.

It's probably true (and something that I, and most people I know forget) that most people DON'T care about e-book portability and durability, and hence don't care about DRM*. But I'm very glad that someone is catering to my market!

We should probably all rush out and buy a bunch of Tor books!

* FWIW, I'd be totally happy with a special purpose device for reading non-portable e-books provided I had any expectation that it would GO ON working and not randomly delete my books, die with no way to back up my books, stop being produced with no alternative made available, etc, etc. I bought a lot of paper books from amazon, even I likely shouldn't have done, because it was convenient, and because I could always start buying elsewhere if I needed.

[andrewducker]

My Nook only has non-DRM epubs on it. Either because that's how I got them, or because I stripped the DRM off after I bought them. Those cannot be taken away from me. If they could, I wouldn't be happy paying for them (although I probably would use a Spotify-like streaming model for books).

[cartesiandaemon]

although I probably would use a Spotify-like streaming model for books

Hm. It feels very strange to do that, since I'm so used to actually owning books. But it would fit my reading model well.

[andrewducker]

My feeling is that I want access to things, not ownership. I want to be able to watch DS9 whenever I feel like it, and if someone else will hold onto it on a file server and stream it to me at a moment's notice, then that's awesome. And if not, then I'd better have a local copy instead!

[simont]

Makes perfect sense to me - it's just like going to the library, only without having to leave your chair!