3 Facts that aren't about my thesis

[trouble]

1) Geekosystem says that Delicious is not shutting down, it's just not going to be at Yahoo! anymore. Read it here. They cite the Delicious Blog, but I can't get to the site right now which may be my internet connection, or it may be that the site is being hammered because the entire internet seems to have lost it about Delicious. (Pinboard.in, the anti-social bookmarking site that's a delicious clone has gone up to $8.30 at this point. Their price is based on the number of users they have, and it was less than $7.00 when I looked at it yesterday. Wow.)

2) A lot of people I know are getting eBook readers! I am very happy for you! (I got Don an eBook reader as a gift this month, and he has promptly filled it with inappropriate fic. It is deeply suitable for his accessibility needs.) Some resources you may want to know about:

- GirleBooks highlights books written by women that are now in the public domain. GirleBooks I don't think all of their books are free, but almost all of them are.

- Project Gutenberg has many many free ebooks that are in the public domain

- Many publishers of sci-fi/fantasy books have put parts of their backlists online for free: Baen has some. I'm sure poking at your favourite publisher will find some more.

- Romance-novel-landia is full of free sample eBooks of various sizes.

- Calibre is a program that can take one type of eBook and turn it into another type of eBook.

- Some fanfic archives are now offering eBook-reader compatible downloads. An Archive of Our Own does this, and there's a few others.

3) I'm so hungry. Woe.

ETA: Bookshare! BookShare is "Accessible Books for Individuals with Print Disabilities". I think it's mostly in the US & Canada, but there are similar programs in other countries.

Comments

[meloukhia]

Yay for free books! I also note that Amazon and the other big box stores have some free ebooks for download as 'samples' although the offerings are not all that scintillating. And they require you to have an account even for free things, which is annoying if you do not want to have your credit card number stored everywhere.

I made macaroni and cheese (baked of course!) with a mixture of Gouda and Gruyere, which my autocorrect wants to make into 'brigade,' and it was fucking delicious. Yes, I am mocking you with food porn. Because I am mean.

[umadoshi]

re: 1) The site's definitely being hammered. I managed to persuade the blog post to load, but it took some doing.

[chaosinabox]

Good stuff to know. Dad's been saying he's going to get Mom an eBook reader for Christmas.

[wrdnrd]

I believe Baen also offers free e-books to people with disabilities. I will look up info. A friend took advantage of this when they got their e-reader the other month.

[trouble]

Oh, I should have remembered to mention BookShare!

[whump]

Useful data point: Apple's Pages app will export to ePub, which is a specification supported by many e-readers (both physical and software based.)

[jhameia]

FREE EBOOKS?

HEY ANNA I FUCKING LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

MOVE TO ONTARIO ALREADY DAMMIT. I WANT TO MAKE YOU TEA.

[rainbow]

baen is lovely! they have free access of their entire library for people with disabilities! http://www.readassist.org/read/service/webscform.php

i signed up and it's made bad spells when i can't do much of anything physical much pleasanter to have lots of sf&f to read.

[jesse_the_k]

And Dusk Peterson, who's writes both profic and fanfic m/m, maintains an "accessible ebook resource" here:

Resources for the disabled at DuskPeterson.com

[st_aurafina]

Calibre is brilliant, I couldn't navigate ebooks without it.

Amalthia's fanfic ebook library has a lot fic for various fandoms. Lots of older fic I remember reading on email lists, too.

[tea]

Ooh, thanks for the girlebook link! My kindle is definitely a repository of smutty (and non-smutty) fanfic, thanks both to amalthia's archive and aooo's AMAZING ebook downloading feature. That thing is the best, I really should put my fic over there some year.