Habitually Lost

Not that the book pirates get any sympathy from me, like I 100% am down with Yo Ho Ho-ing whatever media you want. It's between you and your own conscience/your skills to keep your computer alive. BUT I thought we all agreed that you didn't talk about it? Especially not to the creators face? Why are you going up to people and just apropos of nothing talking to them about how you don't want to give them money but don't worry you really like what they do and they should do more! Not that you'll pay for new things either, but it's not like it's your priority that they can keep their lights on or feed themselves...

Just what are we doing here?

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Some authors are incredibly dumb about libraries, yeah. It makes them extremely unsympathetic.

TBH, the book pirates I see running their mouths in English often can easily afford a copy and live somewhere where the library system could lend them said book. They're entitled dicks.

We have reasonable evidence that ebook piracy affects the ability of that author to keep getting tradpub contracts. And if you're an indie author, your total potential audience is often pretty small, and word of mouth isn't that meaningful once your target demographic has heard of you. Piracy isn't an instant kiss of death, but it has a meaningful negative impact in a way that people pirating Game of Thrones probably does not. I know we're all still thinking in terms of the music piracy wars of years past. The difference, to me, is that a lot of the people going "I wasn't going to buy it anyway" about a very expensive album were probably telling the truth. The people pirating books would absolutely have bought that book, at least if we're talking Americans and the like, even if they're relatively impoverished compared to their neighbors.

Nobody should be walking up to the author and spouting this nonsense, obviously, but a lot of people I see discussing book piracy should not be doing it in the first place, and their excuses are pathetically weak. Ditto knitting patterns. Same entitled baby who's way less poor than they think energy.

Interlude

first train car: a car full of washing machines and little towel-elephants that appears in @nymphacae 's concept art for the Trainwreck a.u.

second train car: The Hanging Garden car, featured in @trojanteapot 's I'll get it right sometime fic.

third train car: The Fog Car from the fic of the same name by Aspenetta.

fourth train car: that strange car from that one Book 6 concept art.

The Monday Period: Part 1 of 6

Part 1: you are here

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

* I’m at one right now!

* I went to one today

* I went to one within the past few days

* I went to one this week

* I went to one within the past few weeks

* I went to one this month

* I went to one within the past few months

* I went to one this year

* it’s been a year or more since I went to a public library

* I’ve never been to a public library

* it’s complicated

* see results

Ok so roads are important infrastructure. A lot of stuff that's important happens on roads. Now, let's imagine that quadrillionaire Matt Stench has decided that the next big tech innovation is the Wide Car. It's a car that takes up six lanes despite seating only one passenger.

The Wide Car is supposed to be the future, and everyone's going to be driving Wide Cars, even though nobody who makes Wide Cars is turning a profit. Employers are offering Wide Cars as an employee benefit, and getting "nah." Some employers are going as far as demanding their employees drive Wide Cars, and the result is that people take time out of their workdays to get in the mandatory gas usage for their Wide Car before driving home in a regular car.

In spite of the fact that the Wide Car is clearly set to fail, there's an enormous push to expand to twelve-lane roads to accommodate a bunch of Wide Cars that simply will not materialize. This is not an organic response to demand, but a speculative investment that amplifies the existing issues with road development for no good reason.

These cars don't fit into parking spaces and make pulling out in parking lots impossible

The weight of big cars is causing additional stress on roads and bridges

The number of big cars and trucks is directly linked to the number of children struck by cars because the drivers can't see over the hood!

And this is its even worse sibling from this year.