anyway I love things like having independence, being intelligent, taking pride in my skills, not feigning incompetence, referring to myself as a woman instead of a girl, aging unapologetically, having pores, stretch marks, grey hairs, wrinkles and body fat, listening to my body’s needs, eating as much as I need to satisfy my hunger, being bare-faced, wearing comfortable clothes, etcetera
I’ve been having a lot of feelings about the downfall of quality lately.
I ordered a pair of Dickies pants because pants are hard and workwear is usually reliable. When they arrived they were the scratchiest, most papery material–I can’t actually call it fabric in good faith–and fit a full three sizes too small. A week later I found the same pair in a thrift store, dated 2017. These are actual pants. They fit, they’re not made of asbestos. They’re only separated by time.
There’s no wood used in interior design unless it’s a custom build. I have a set of wealthy relatives who live in a condo. The downpayment for it was likely more money than I will see in my lifetime. The floors and the cabinets are all still laminate. I know I will never see real wood in a building constructed after 2000. Every “apartment hack” I see online has this very conspicuous, flat appearance because of all the paint and contact paper required to make these builds look personal in any way. The only natural materials are in the furnishings.
I’ve been harping on this for years, but everything is shit, nothing is designed to work, and “growth” and “profit” are just euphemisms for cutting corners until things are unworkable.
Internet Archive (archive.org) offers 39 million+ books to be loaned online within your browser for free. They stay away from putting newly released books in the online library, but it’s still an absolutely massive resource of for books that span decades and centuries.
In the past couple of years, though, four major publishing houses brought Internet Archive to court, alleging that the lending program infringed copyright and resulted in losses (there was no evidence of the latter but anyway). The lower court proceedings concluded last Friday, and even though Internet Archive intends to appeal the decision, here’s what the ruling was (outlined here):
Out-of-print books and books not available in electronic format will continue to be available for lending.
Internet Archive is allowed to keep expanding its preservation of books, and they do not have to delete the books they have already scanned.
Extracts from books that were referenced in Wikipedia articles will continue to be displayed.
The rest of Internet Archive, including the Wayback Machine which preserves over 800 billion web pages, will remain functional.
Nobody’s going to jail. This isn’t the Library of Alexandria all over again. Phew.
However, Internet Archive is now required to remove books that are currently in print or which can be bought electronically from their library. Many books will be removed soon.
