Circus Tree: Six Individual Sycamore Trees Were Shaped, Bent, And Braided To Form This.

Circus Tree: Six individual sycamore trees were shaped, bent, and braided to form this.

Microsoft announces it will shut down ebook program and confiscate its customers' libraries

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn’t making enough money, so they’re shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years, thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own those books.

When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn’t get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash refund for the price you paid.

People sometimes treat me like my decision not to sell my books through Amazon’s Audible is irrational (Audible will not let writers or publisher opt to sell their books without DRM), but if you think Amazon is immune to this kind of shenanigans, you are sadly mistaken. My books matter a lot to me. I just paid $8,000 to have a container full of books shipped from a storage locker in the UK to our home in LA so I can be closer to them. The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job.

https://boingboing.net/2019/04/02/burning-libraries.html

snufkin “Petty Theft Is Fine But I Cross The Line At The Fuck Word”

Miserable dad needs help - part 2

I’m just going to leave this here…

They did and It's cool but terrifying!

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-16554357/the-goats-with-spider-genes-and-silk-in-their-milk

It's legit. And odd.

BBC News

The goats with spider genes added

Genetically modified goats at a farm in the US are being farmed to produce large quantities of spider silk, one of the strongest known subst

Fruits and vegetables, before and after human intervention. 

Source