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shadowkatAll achey breaky today - I took an aleve before leaving work, and a shower, and did a little yoga - and sigh, my legs are bugging me, and it's most likely digestive related. (It usually is.) At least the commute was okay for the most part. No one tried to dig into my backpack and I got a seat.
(Technically speaking - the attempt to open my backpack, only happened once, and by a wet between the years white, blond haired, and blue eyed teenage boy from a wealthy neighborhood, who should have known better.)
Found this oration on boycotting by John Scalzi, entitled The Billionaire Boycott Conudrum
He makes some valid points about the difficulty of boycotting Amazon. I realized today how impossible it is. For one thing? My health care aka NYU Langone is using Amazon One as their new check in tech starting this summer. Boycotting NYU Langone is out of the question. Also, as an independently published writer? My novel is on Amazon and was published via Amazon - if it weren't for Amazon, I couldn't have afforded to get it published. I'm techie enough to do it myself. And a lot of other indie publishers survive because of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.
And as Scalzi validly points out - it's not like the other publishers are much better. The Trades are basically nazis. I've been boycotting Simon and Schuster and Random House for decades.
It’s not possible (nor could Audible dump me, except by mutual agreement, the deal is pretty solid), but even if I could, that would just mean that my audiobooks, like my print and ebook novels, would be published by a conglomerate founded by an actual fucking Nazi, which got its break publishing Nazi literature, a point which was unsurprisingly obfuscated after the war. If I took my bat and ball and went to a different “Big Five” publisher, my choices would be another publisher who was quite tight with the actual fucking Nazi party, a publisher owned by fucking Rupert Murdoch, a publisher whose conglomerate just scrapped its DEI initiatives and cravenly settled a defamation suit filed by Trump, or Hachette, for which a cursory examination does not show historically poor behavior, either past or current, but I’m willing to entertain the notion that is an artifact of my cursory examination, and not because as a conglomerate they have always been on the side of the angels.
To be clear, I do not think that the current generation of the Holtzbrinck family (which owns Tor, via many mergers) is planning to revert into its predecessors’ eminently regrettable politics. Also, I really like working with Audible; they’re a great publisher for me. The point is that pretty much all of capitalism above the level of an Amish produce kiosk is besmirched, and if you don’t want to live in a hut, eating from your own garden and drinking nothing but rainwater, you have decisions to make, both as a creator and as a consumer
Another example? "Even then you may find yourself contributing to the bottom line of a company you intended to boycott. If you ditch The Washington Post (not owned by Amazon, but owned by Jeff Bezos) and subscribe to The Guardian instead, you are still putting money in Bezos’ pocket, because The Guardian uses Amazon Web Services to stay online. Ditching Amazon’s streaming services for Netflix? Same problem. And so on. Note well that Amazon Web Services is actually the biggest division of the company and the largest contributor to its operating revenue… and is not public-facing in any meaningful sense. It’s merely the backbone of a third of the commercial internet."
[I did not know that. Did you know that?]
I was discussing this with mother, and we both agree that Bezos isn't the same as Musk. He's hedging his bets - he donated funds to both the Republicans and the Democrats in 2024 - according to a site that tracks it. I have the app - "Goods". And he refused to endorse either with the Post.
Also, Trump's actions are hurting him too - since he's in competition with Musk. He just doesn't want to piss him off, and is a free-market self interested capitalist. I'm not saying he's not a pain, or that I'm not annoyed with him, I am. But he's not on my hit list.
That said, I am boycotting to the extent that I can? I've not ordered anything from Amazon this week (outside of the comic subscriptions that were pre-ordered back in December) and my mother bought my birthday gift outside of it. I'm also avoiding Whole Foods for now. It's still getting money from me, just not as much. And overall? The boycott is working, since it's stocks took a dive.
***
Crazy Workplace
I solved the work problem that I was kind of whinging about yesterday - or rather Lawyer solved it. I putted it in her direction and Breaking Bad's, and Breaking Bad had no clue, so Lawyer stepped in.
Lawyer: Do you want to reach out to them for more information, or should I?
ME: Unfortunately, you probably should, since I attempted it and just went around in a circle.
Also today...
Me: (reviewing Modification 7) okay where's Mod 5?
Document: Mod 5 is currently in progress and this will be involved in Mod 5.
Me: Wait a minute? Did you frigging project managers jump over mod 5 and issue the mods out of order, after I told you not to??
Anyone else feel like they are just banging their head against a wall of jello? Or as my father used to put it - throwing jello at a wall.
**
Also bought a black sweatshirt with the subway map printed on it, and New York in big letters. I got it from the NYC Transit Museum Store. Also bought a card with New Yorker cover on it for niece. I'm going to start writing niece.
***
Books
I'm reading The New Yorker on the subway now instead of my Kindle. Mainly because I got lost in Station Eternity - too many characters, too many points of view, and I kept losing the plot. I just don't have the attention span for it? Also it's hard to read on the subway. While short magazine articles don't require quite as much work and it's nice not to be reading off a screen for a bit.
Finished Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Mass on Audible - it's not bad. Advertised as fairy smut, but there were only two sex scenes, and blink and you miss them? I was able to ignore them. It's mainly focused on the protagonist figuring out how to defeat the antagonist. Reminding me a little of Cupid and Psyche (Psyche's trials) by way of Beauty and the Beast. It does subvert a few story tropes in an interesting manner, and works well as a coming of age journey - where the protagonist, Ferah, is transformed by the end. Also not predictable. Much better written than Fourth Wing, also better narrated, I actually loved the narrator's voice.
Works as a stand-a-lone. I don't feel compelled to read the next one. And I'm not sure I want to - since we're going the dark romance road in that one. I'm not sure I can handle the protagonist striking up a romance with the fairy that tortured her and her friends at various points. We'll see.
Now, listening to Leigh Bardouch's Six of Crows - which is hard to follow, so we'll see. It has multiple points of view, and more than one narrator involved. However, I saw the television series - so it may work.
The best part of Shadow and Bone was "Six of Crows".
(Technically speaking - the attempt to open my backpack, only happened once, and by a wet between the years white, blond haired, and blue eyed teenage boy from a wealthy neighborhood, who should have known better.)
Found this oration on boycotting by John Scalzi, entitled The Billionaire Boycott Conudrum
He makes some valid points about the difficulty of boycotting Amazon. I realized today how impossible it is. For one thing? My health care aka NYU Langone is using Amazon One as their new check in tech starting this summer. Boycotting NYU Langone is out of the question. Also, as an independently published writer? My novel is on Amazon and was published via Amazon - if it weren't for Amazon, I couldn't have afforded to get it published. I'm techie enough to do it myself. And a lot of other indie publishers survive because of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.
And as Scalzi validly points out - it's not like the other publishers are much better. The Trades are basically nazis. I've been boycotting Simon and Schuster and Random House for decades.
It’s not possible (nor could Audible dump me, except by mutual agreement, the deal is pretty solid), but even if I could, that would just mean that my audiobooks, like my print and ebook novels, would be published by a conglomerate founded by an actual fucking Nazi, which got its break publishing Nazi literature, a point which was unsurprisingly obfuscated after the war. If I took my bat and ball and went to a different “Big Five” publisher, my choices would be another publisher who was quite tight with the actual fucking Nazi party, a publisher owned by fucking Rupert Murdoch, a publisher whose conglomerate just scrapped its DEI initiatives and cravenly settled a defamation suit filed by Trump, or Hachette, for which a cursory examination does not show historically poor behavior, either past or current, but I’m willing to entertain the notion that is an artifact of my cursory examination, and not because as a conglomerate they have always been on the side of the angels.
To be clear, I do not think that the current generation of the Holtzbrinck family (which owns Tor, via many mergers) is planning to revert into its predecessors’ eminently regrettable politics. Also, I really like working with Audible; they’re a great publisher for me. The point is that pretty much all of capitalism above the level of an Amish produce kiosk is besmirched, and if you don’t want to live in a hut, eating from your own garden and drinking nothing but rainwater, you have decisions to make, both as a creator and as a consumer
Another example? "Even then you may find yourself contributing to the bottom line of a company you intended to boycott. If you ditch The Washington Post (not owned by Amazon, but owned by Jeff Bezos) and subscribe to The Guardian instead, you are still putting money in Bezos’ pocket, because The Guardian uses Amazon Web Services to stay online. Ditching Amazon’s streaming services for Netflix? Same problem. And so on. Note well that Amazon Web Services is actually the biggest division of the company and the largest contributor to its operating revenue… and is not public-facing in any meaningful sense. It’s merely the backbone of a third of the commercial internet."
[I did not know that. Did you know that?]
I was discussing this with mother, and we both agree that Bezos isn't the same as Musk. He's hedging his bets - he donated funds to both the Republicans and the Democrats in 2024 - according to a site that tracks it. I have the app - "Goods". And he refused to endorse either with the Post.
Also, Trump's actions are hurting him too - since he's in competition with Musk. He just doesn't want to piss him off, and is a free-market self interested capitalist. I'm not saying he's not a pain, or that I'm not annoyed with him, I am. But he's not on my hit list.
That said, I am boycotting to the extent that I can? I've not ordered anything from Amazon this week (outside of the comic subscriptions that were pre-ordered back in December) and my mother bought my birthday gift outside of it. I'm also avoiding Whole Foods for now. It's still getting money from me, just not as much. And overall? The boycott is working, since it's stocks took a dive.
***
Crazy Workplace
I solved the work problem that I was kind of whinging about yesterday - or rather Lawyer solved it. I putted it in her direction and Breaking Bad's, and Breaking Bad had no clue, so Lawyer stepped in.
Lawyer: Do you want to reach out to them for more information, or should I?
ME: Unfortunately, you probably should, since I attempted it and just went around in a circle.
Also today...
Me: (reviewing Modification 7) okay where's Mod 5?
Document: Mod 5 is currently in progress and this will be involved in Mod 5.
Me: Wait a minute? Did you frigging project managers jump over mod 5 and issue the mods out of order, after I told you not to??
Anyone else feel like they are just banging their head against a wall of jello? Or as my father used to put it - throwing jello at a wall.
**
Also bought a black sweatshirt with the subway map printed on it, and New York in big letters. I got it from the NYC Transit Museum Store. Also bought a card with New Yorker cover on it for niece. I'm going to start writing niece.
***
Books
I'm reading The New Yorker on the subway now instead of my Kindle. Mainly because I got lost in Station Eternity - too many characters, too many points of view, and I kept losing the plot. I just don't have the attention span for it? Also it's hard to read on the subway. While short magazine articles don't require quite as much work and it's nice not to be reading off a screen for a bit.
Finished Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Mass on Audible - it's not bad. Advertised as fairy smut, but there were only two sex scenes, and blink and you miss them? I was able to ignore them. It's mainly focused on the protagonist figuring out how to defeat the antagonist. Reminding me a little of Cupid and Psyche (Psyche's trials) by way of Beauty and the Beast. It does subvert a few story tropes in an interesting manner, and works well as a coming of age journey - where the protagonist, Ferah, is transformed by the end. Also not predictable. Much better written than Fourth Wing, also better narrated, I actually loved the narrator's voice.
Works as a stand-a-lone. I don't feel compelled to read the next one. And I'm not sure I want to - since we're going the dark romance road in that one. I'm not sure I can handle the protagonist striking up a romance with the fairy that tortured her and her friends at various points. We'll see.
Now, listening to Leigh Bardouch's Six of Crows - which is hard to follow, so we'll see. It has multiple points of view, and more than one narrator involved. However, I saw the television series - so it may work.
The best part of Shadow and Bone was "Six of Crows".