what does me learning python have to do with wired magazine? nicholas negroponte had a significant hand in both.

negroponte was the first investor for wired magazine, and also the founder of the one-laptop-per-child project, my interest in which is what led me to try python a 2nd time-- as part of an app that only exists on olpcs"sugar" platform. (a platform based on redhat and developed for olpc, which you can run in other distros.)


but wired has gotten incredibly stupid over the years, and this takes the cake:



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jeff bezos is the very last person on earth that should have anything remotely like a controlling interest in libraries. (of course, major donors have absolutely zero say in how non-profit organizations run..⸮)

as long as public libraries have existed, theyve found themselves at odds with publishers. costing them sales? no-- much like the radio, the loans from libraries increase the sales of books.

that doesnt mean that publishers appreciate the lack of control. there is a long history of publishers trying to cut libraries out of the deal, and the library as we know it would not even exist if it were up to publishers.

what does this have to do with jeff bezos?

jeff bezos is the number-1 reason that books now stay in control of the publisher after purchase. if this caught on, it means libraries would exist only at the mercy of the encryption key holders. so far, this control has resulted in amazon using its control to remove everyones copy of 1984 from their kindles after the sale. (youd think it was an april fools story-- circa 2009.)

they can also delete your entire library and ban you from purchasing kindle titles from amazon, as allegedly happened to one customer in 2012.)


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this shouldnt even be possible, but its how the kindle works (with drm titles.)

books should never work like this-- i stopped doing business with amazon completely, after the kindle came out. the reason? they were making richard stallmans"right to read" into a true story!
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a lease is a lease, a SALE (to a library, for example) should not be something that can be revoked by the seller after money is exchanged for goods.

amazon is an even greater threat to libraries than budget cuts-- libraries require autonomy from publishers in order to serve their purpose, and few people pose more of a problem to that autonomy than jeff bezos.

they might as well run an article that says"jeff bezos should buy up libraries and turn them into amazon shipping depots." theyre already going in that direction, in terms of e-books.

the last thing libraries want or need, is jeff bezos money. they already have his e-reader, and thats more than trouble enough.

I would never buy any DRM material, it's why I don't have any digital readers.

If the info isn't readily available, it isn't worth knowing. __{{emoticon}}__