100% rebate (US & CA), #10 & #11 of No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency

[pdurrant]

At fictionwise, books #10 & #11 of No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith are currently on 100% micropay rebate.

For club members, this means that by buying one on CC/Paypal and one using the micropay rebate, it costs $17 for both, or $8.50 each - cheaper than Amazon.

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b8...ooks/b107612/?

But Amazon is still cheaper if you don't have club membership.

[Worldwalker]

I assume they're DRM-locked?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I assume they're DRM-locked?

Oh yes. Available in eReader or Adobe ePub. You won't find these books from a legitimate site without DRM.

Of course, DRM has a fatal flaw, in that the customer must have the encryption key to read the book. And so removing the DRM can never be impossible...

[Marcy]

Even better is that the first book in the series is currently $1.99 (!) or $1.69 for club members. A great deal and a great way to use up Micropay if you only have a small amount left. Available in ereader, lit, pdf and epub.

-Marcy

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Oh yes. Available in eReader or Adobe ePub. You won't find these books from a legitimate site without DRM.

Of course, DRM has a fatal flaw, in that the customer must have the encryption key to read the book. And so removing the DRM can never be impossible...

It's a matter of principle. I won't buy DRM-restricted books, even though I know I could strip the DRM, because I will not support that sales model. The vote of my wallet may be very, very tiny indeed, but it's voting for DRM-free ebooks. Like, oh, Kai Lung Raises His Voice.

Too bad, because I really want to read the latest one. I won't buy it in HC, though, because it wouldn't match the rest of my collection. Yeah, I'm pretty OCD about having things match, so I'm waiting for the trade paperback.

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

DRM is to rights management like DDT is to pest management.

I find DRM offensive, but it could be a lot worse. Some video game companies are going to a model where you have to be verified by an online check every 5-10 minutes while you are playing the game. At least the current DRM is easily strippable -- there are even simple-to-use GUI interfaces for the not-geek-inclined among us.

Your quote strikes me as symbolic of the whole thing. DDT is a very safe and effective pesticide. The ban was based on the same crap science as global warming. Millions of children have died since the ban as there has been no replacement nearly as cheap or as effective as DDT. Yet this tragedy gets no coverage. The suffering of millions of African children isn't important to people unless it fits their view of the world.

http://www.junkscience.com/malaria_clock.html

-Marcy

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Some video game companies are going to a model where you have to be verified by an online check every 5-10 minutes while you are playing the game.

I saw that the new Splinter Cell game has that and a lot of folks have canceled their orders.

[Worldwalker]

Actually, as I understand it (based more on my reading about mosquitoes than about pesticides; sorry I can't give refs, but my books are packed) there is one major problem with DDT: mosquitoes (its usual target) develop resistance to it very rapidly, usually within ten years or less. Kind of like us ebook buyers developing resistance to DRM. The major predators of mosquitoes, on the other hand, do not seem to have the same level of biological flexibility. So when DDT is used, the mosquito population drops drastically, then rebounds, then increases because the natural predators are now missing. It works in the short term, but because of whatever quirk in mosquito biology lets them develop resistance to it so rapidly, it doesn't work as well in the long term. So it looks like a cheap and easy fix, but in the long run, you've got the flying, biting, malaria-spreading equivalent of XDR-TB on the loose, plus whatever else is going wrong with your ecosystem due to the loss of the mosquito predators which also eat other insects. As a short-term fix until other controls could be implemented, it can and does work, but not long term. Mosquitoes are adaptable little wretches.

Incidentally, at least as far as I'm aware, DDT is still legal for use for vector control in most countries; it's large-scale agricultural use that's generally prohibited, as that both causes greater environmental damage and, by exposing a larger population of mosquitoes to DDT, even those that are not near human habitation, increases the chances of resistance developing.

A combined program of pesticide-treated mosquito nets, elimination of breeding places, and yes, selective spraying when necessary, is more effective in the long run. Sure, it's not as easy as "just spray this miracle stuff around and your problem is gone" but it has the decided advantage of actually working. Since the malaria plasmodium's lifecycle involves two alternating hosts, the key to eradicating it is to break that cycle: reduce the population of infectious mosquitoes and reduce the population of vulnerable humans, so that the chances of an infectious mosquito biting a vulnerable human (or an as-yet-uninfected mosquito biting an infectious human) is virtually nil. Killing adult mosquitoes is only one part of that.

All that aside, my sig is actually referring to the word "management". When you hire a "pest management" company, you're not hiring them to teach the cockroaches to march in formation; you're hiring them to eradicate the little buggers. DDT is used to destroy insects. The whole point is you don't want any left alive (would you hire an exterminator that advertised "we'll kill most of the bugs"?). And likewise, DRM eradicates rights, it doesn't just "manage" them.

No, it's not a perfect analogy, but I thought it was clever.