Bob Smith

This is the biggest problem that I have with the Windows ‘Just download the program from the internet’ mentality. All that it takes is one brief moment when you let your guard down and everything falls apart. On top of that, modern search engines seem to be very happy to show bogus results as prominently as possible. Package managers aren’t perfect, but they’re a big step in the right direction. When I have to use Windows outside of a corporate or managed setting, I use something like Chocolatey.

Gotcha. This is replacing one nonsense black box with a different one, then. That makes a depressing kind of sense. No evidence needed, either!

All of that being typed, I’m aware that the ‘If’ in my initial response is doing the same amount of heavy lifting as the ‘Some might argue’ in the article. Barring the revelation of some truly extraordinary evidence, I don’t accept the premise.

Wow. If a black box analysis of arbitrary facial characteristics is more meritocratic than the status quo, that speaks volumes about the nightmare hellscape shitshow of policy, procedure and discretion that resides behind the current set of ‘metrics’ being used.

One thing to note about the Kobo store is that it (unlike Amazon) lists the DRM status of a given book towards the bottom of the store page below the reviews. If you see something like “Epub 2 (DRM Free)” then that’s the format that the book will be in if you download it.

You can download a book that you’ve purchased directly from the website on the My Account/My Books subpage. I’ve tested this out and it can be a good way to get paid DRM free ebooks, if that’s what the publisher wants to sell.