So the government went after Apple and the publishers and stopped the agency pricing model. It's supposedly to help the consumer, to keep prices low. And it sort of worked. Allegiant came out this week or last week. $6.99 at Amazon. $6.99 at Apple iBookstore. But Amazon doesn't use ePubs, and I can't remove the DRM from iBooks. I got Divergent from the Sony eBookstore, but Allegiant goes for $11.76 there. But that's ePub, and Tracy uses a Sony PRS-T1 Reader, and we got Divergent from there originally. And then looking around, it's $13.99 at Feedbooks, $9.99 at Kobo. So how does that help the consumer? Imagine if each book of the series was cheapest in a different store. Which is entirely possible. Then, assuming I don't know how to strip DRM, that I would have to buy 3 different devices, in order to read the 3 books, that, thanks to the US Government, the individual stores could determine prices on. Instead of, say, the publisher had decided on the price, and all the stores sold it at the same price, and then they'd have to compete on device, or interoperability. Seems like they made it worse. So thanks for that. Now, if they took the next step and regulated the format of books, and that all readers had to be able to read books from any seller, then it would make sense to be able to sell the same book at whatever price they wanted. But there's device lock-in and DRM to worry about. So what am I going to do? Probably just eat the cost and buy from Sony because it's the cheapest Adobe DRM that I can easily strip so I can then put it on all the devices I own. I'm paying for the ability to commit a crime more easily. Ugh.

So what got me to write? An Apple Event. Go figure. Bunch of software made free, MacBook Air and Pro updates, iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina Display. Going to nuke and pave to install Mavericks on the iMac. And have to decide which iPad to get, or to wait for what I think will eventually come, an iPad Pro. Or, just keep trucking with my iPad with Retina Display. Other than that, been taking some time off from biking. I managed to fall off a couple of weeks ago, when I was going down the sidewalk avoiding traffic. And my legs have been more sore than not recently. And I got tired of changing my tubes after flats (something like 4 total). I got new tires, but just haven't gotten the time to put them on, and because it's staying darker later and getting darker earlier, I need to put my Revolights back on, and that takes time too. And it's colder, so I don't like working in the garage to do all this. So maybe I'll bring the wheels up and do it. Another reason I started taking the L again? So I can read. Finished up the Wool series with Shift and Dust. Pretty good read. Now, finally reading Steve Jobs biography. Been nice. Using a Kindle Paperwhite (2013 Edition). Very nice. Originally thought it was too heavy, but got used to it. And forgot to mention that we upgraded to iPhone 5Ss. I stayed with white and Tracy stayed with black. Didn't go to gold, because I wanted to color coordinate with a future iPad, which I don't think would ever go gold. Anyway, totally used to the taller screen (since I was coming from an iPhone 4S). All the others just like short and squat now. Finished up Fringe. Continuum Season 2 was made available on Netflix, so plowing through that. Tracy and baby #2 are coming along fine. And soon. Just about a month out now. Crazy.