Remember how my previous employer denied my WFH request so that I could flee the state of Ohio to take care of my trans kid while still working for a company I loved?
I just heard they did it to someone else today.
When you insist people come in to an office a few days a week because you want a "hybrid culture" not a "remote culture" and then tell them to just fuck off when all they want to do is get their kid somewhere safe that makes you an absolutely shitty person.
I'm done hiding who it was.
The company is #OverDrive, based in Cleveland. They make ebook lending software for your local library called #Libby. They say they care about their LGBTQIA+ employees and families but that is clearly a lie.
Ohio lawmakers are turning my home state into absolute garbage and companies like this one are playing along.
[Edit, since this is doing numbers: The reason my request was denied a little over a year ago, despite me explaining in detail why, was because they "want a hybrid culture, not a remote culture." (a quote from a senior leader to my face)
In both 2020 and 2021 while the whole company was working remotely I won two annual employee excellence awards for my work on their Security team, while the company had record growth.
Meanwhile, one of my teammates moved out of state to be closer to family and continued to work remotely.]
I highly recommend supporting the Standard Ebooks project. 📚
«Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces new editions of public domain e-books that are lovingly formatted, open source, free of copyright restrictions, and free of cost.»
My old e-reader had some problems and needed to be replaced. I ended up exploring the hell that is DRM (copy protection) on e-books and tried to break the restraints so I can read my own legally acquired books with FOSS software. I wrote a blog post on it that describes my frustrations (another ideological rant) but hopefully also helps others in a similar position with some practical guidance: https://proycon.anaproy.nl/posts/do-not-restrict-me/
(Of course, if you're not in the US, they've already made the choice for you. Thanks terrible international intellectual property laws!)
Until today, my experience buying #ebooks from Humble Bundle was they were always available unencumbered by #DRM. I have hundreds of #DRMFree#epubs built up over the past decade.
The #PratchettDiscworldHumbleBundle is through #Rakuten#Kobo's ebook shop, and all the books are encumbered by #Adobe and the #AdobeDigitalEdition DRM. There is zero indication that this DRM is included on the bundle page itself. and it explicitly says "Use on Any Device". On the #RakutenKobo page itself, the only indication the file has DRM is some small bottom-text that says "Download Options: EPUB 3 (Adobe DRM)".
Also, DRM Digital Editions will also "helpfully" install Norton for you as well. It's like the dogshit you just stepped in offered to stab you in the kidney, too.
This is shameful and disgusting from Humble Bundle. I know Humble Bundle got acquired years ago by IGN/Ziff Davis, but they'd avoided the levels of #enshittification to make me stop using them.
It means you can read them on any device, and they're not locked to a single vendor or company. You actually own them.
If you're having trouble finding online bookshops that sell DRM-free ebooks, I have something that will help...
Here's a list of over 300 online bookshops that sell DRM-free ebooks, digital comics, magazines, and RPGs, in multiple formats for any of your favourite devices.
Okay so NOW this FREE cyberpunk collection (which is so old you can see on the cover that it was only $3.50 for a paperback copy), is available as an #ebook download (FREE, I said!) as well as just opening it to read on your device. If you want it in that format, you can go there and try out the two ebook download systems it's offered on, let me know if it's not working.
There's no reason for digital books or any other digital media to have the limitations of physical media arbitrarily imposed on them. Digital "lending" is a solved problem: https://u.fsf.org/3eg#DayAgainstDRM#Libraries#ebooks
Dewey was one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the fathers of functional psychology. He was also a major educational reformer for the 20th century, he founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
Volunteer with Distributed Proofreaders (@DProofreaders):
Visit https://www.pgdp.net to learn about how to help create some of Project Gutenberg's forthcoming eBooks.
Proofreading a page a day is easy, fun, and a great way to help bring literature to the world. There are many different roles, for the different steps involved in digitizing a printed book to make a Project Gutenberg eBook. Beginners are welcome, and there is an online tutorial to get started.
For those who might be interested: This isn't the super-low discount sale price that we've offered before, but still deeply discounted... and significantly lower thanthe price'll be starting on January 1. The EBD Whole Store bundle: 36 #DRMfree#ebooks with our free replacement guarantee! https://bit.ly/End2023WholeStore
"As the Internet Archive appeals a court decision blocking alternatives to surveillance-ridden digital book licenses, a new report reveals that the world’s largest publisher may be selling readers’ intimate personal data to the highest bidder. E-books are fast becoming tools of corporate surveillance"
"As more and more readers turn to ebooks, libraries are forced to keep up with the trend, often having to pay onerous licensing fees just for the "privilege" of keeping the work in stock, and, often unknowingly, exposing their patrons' data." Read the full article about IDAD 2023: https://u.fsf.org/421#LearnLibre#EndDRM#Libraries#ebooks#DayAgainstDRM
Added AO3 to Libreture's list of DRM-free bookshops! 💜
The fan-created, fan-run, nonprofit, noncommercial archive for transformative fanworks, hosts more than 63,280 fandoms, 6,650,000 users, and 12,380,000 works.
I am looking for the most privacy friendly way to buy ebooks.
Every shop and platform I've looked at would index and sell my purchase and a lot of other information.
I can get my ebooks in different ways but I explicitly want to pay the author for their work without me and my behavior ending up a resell product for which ever platform I use to complete this purchase.
Project Gutenberg - huge library of free ebooks (www.gutenberg.org)
Probably the best source of non-copyrighted literature on the planet, imho, and a necessary bookmark for any lit addict