---
id: 2025-10-26T18:36:00-0500
title: 2025-10-26 18:36:??
tags:
  - original-format/typewritten-print
  - status/complete
  - topic/hobbies/reading
daily: "[[2025-10-26]]"
---
# 2025-10-26 18:36:??

_Sunday evening_

I read Harlan Ellison's _I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream_ this morning.
It took me about two hours. What may be curious about that is the story is
less than six thousand words. What I did for _IHNMAIMS_, though---and what I've
made a habit of doing with all short-form literature I read recently---
is only half reading. Here's my process:

1. Google or DuckDuckGo (Google's cooler but less studious cousin)for
    "(title).epub", or "(title).pdf" if the first doesn't get any good
    hits.

2. Convert the ripped doc to markdown using one of several tools as
    most appropriate and no small amount of manual effort.

3. Convert the new markdown file to epub and upload it to my calibre
    library.

It's during step 2 that I read the piece, and I really get in there.
Because markdown ignores single line breaks you can put them where ever you
want in a paragraph without changing the output. Some standards recommend on
sentence per line, but that's often to long to be practical, and, more
importantly, misses out on the ability to punctuate another author's writing
the way they goddamn well should've in the first place. Again I stress, this
doesn't affect the output.

I do this so often that reading any other way---
web articles, where line breaks are meaningless, or worse print, where the
the same is true and text is broken up arbitrarily into pages---has become
noticeably more straining. Equally straining is writing in this wall-of-text
format. I've done it so far simply because I like hearing the margin bell ahhhh
We're too advanced as a species to be treating books
as anything but an imperfect medium for the pure expression of text.

I have what some might consider a liberal view of artistic ownership.
Suppose you were conversing with a coworker and they said something poignant,
later you speak with another and share the first's anecdote as your own.
Is this theft? No. Immoral? Unethical? Perhaps.
Your coworker has not lost anything.
Not the idea, and not the certainty that _they_ came up with it.
It is possible to believe that something should not be done
without believing those who do should be imprisoned.
Personally, I cite my sources because I respect _information_ not authors.
I _would_ "steal", but I really get a kick out of paying.

To value the profit of one's ideas above their inherent worth is shameful.
