vault backup: 2025-11-10 16:55:49

2025-10-26.md

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+id:
+aliases: []
+tags:
+  - authorship/original
+  - destiny/permanent
+  - original-format/typewritten-print
+  - type/daily
+title: 2025-10-26
+---
+# 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.