libby app guide

aka how to support libraries and get books and audiobooks for free without pirating them.

disclaimer: this is so easy. it is also really fun.

one: download the libby app. you'll open it and it'll ask you to add a library.

two: get a library card. don't have one? good news, it's really easy and i am saying this as the laziest person on earth. it varies what you need to have to get a card library to library but almost all libraries will let you get one online. i have a card for my home town and for the town i moved to. sometimes you only need an email address, sometimes you need an area code. to get mine it took me about 5 minutes of lying on the couch aimlessly tapping on my phone. follow your heart. you can get cards for places you don't currently live. i will leave the ethics of that up to you but it's probably better than pirating and either way you're creating traffic for libraries which is what they need to exist.

three: add your card. you can add multiple cards for multiple libraries. you need the number. i have never had libby fail to recognize a valid account.

four: search for your book! some will be ready to borrow right away. others have an estimated delivery time. libby will always pick the one that's the fastest from the options available at all the libraries you have cards at. you can borrow audiobooks and ebooks. libby will send you a notification when you're book is ready to borrow. in my experience it's a lot faster than the estimate. if you aren't ready to read it, you can ask to be skipped over in line so you keep your place at the front but let someone else read it first.

five: read it!!! kindle is the most common way to do this. you can go to your loan and click read with kindle. it'll download it to all your devices where you have kindle. as long as you have the loan, it'll act like your book. when the loan ends, if the device is connected to the internet, it'll automatically be returned. it will save all your notes and highlights. (if you disconnect your device from the internet, it won't return the book. weewoo.)

anyway in case anyone else has been wondering about it, i really love it. is a nice surprise to see what i'm going to get and it's cut my reading costs down big time! it's also neat because i get to synch my books between devices unlike downloading books through cough cough other means. good luck!

Reblogging again to say that you do not need Kindle, the app or the device, to read ebooks on Libby!! You can read any book you borrow WITHIN the Libby app, and you can change the font and dark/light mode for accessibility too.

please be aware the libby app does NOT let you read or listen offline so the app itself is unusable for me for actual reading unfortunately! you guys who have access to the internet steadily can use it but be aware. you can't use it on a plane, for example, but if you download to kindle you can.

You should actually be able to use libby app offline (for those allergic to kindle like I am lmao). You just have to change your download permissions in settings. The web browser version of libby is online only though.

Go to Settings > Change Download Rules > toggle to “Everything” (and recommended to “Download only on Wi-fi” if you are worried about your data)

Then Settings > Read Books With… > Libby, so that it downloads to the correct app. You should be able to change your preferences on the main page by clicking the cloud icon to see where you’ve downloaded it too.

Libby also has a feature called Notify Me--if you search for a book and Libby can find it in their database but it's not available to borrow from your library, hit Notify Me. Not only will you be notified if the book becomes available, but your library will be notified that there is A Reader who is looking for this book, so that they can buy it if that's possible for them--without you having to make a direct request!

You can also change your preferences so you only see results in the medium you want so you only see audiobooks if that is what you use Libby for (like me) or to exclude audio if you only want eBooks

audiobooks are SO expensive, and i listen to them almost every night. libby has saved me thousands of dollars by now, no joke. support your local library. if you’re not american, you can still try to apply for a library card at the brooklyn library!

I don't know if you finish this sketch but I love it so far

Le gasp!? “Dick you’re making a post!? Like a real true blue post!? Say it’s so!!” Yeah I just had to show you all this amazing vintage ad my friend “MDaMan1976” found and sent me, don’t worry about his hand he has jaundice apparently. This one was lots of fun (and super fast). Un-written on version under the cut!

FT Freddy has almost perfected the art of playing innocent even when he is far from that. It only shows behind closed doors.

Self-learning AI can be a fickle thing, but how much should he let others be aware of and to whom...

Sprintrap time

this is litterally such a stance. they're standing like mall teens. boyband album cover. the main characters in a 2000s disney channel movie. me and the boys.

after a suicide attempt in 2016

excerpt from Cherry by Mary Karr, context being after a suicide attempt at age 13

Some context: Texas and Arkansas share a corner border. Now, Texas is FECKING HUGE and there are many, many parts of Texas that cannot visit Arkansas overnight, but there are parts where it’s no trouble at all.

However, those places of Texas that are close to Arkansas, do not include “close to Fort Smith, Arkansas.”

The closest Texas gets to Fort Smith is about 185 miles (about 300km), at “a little closer than Texarkana.” (Dallas, fwiw, is about 275 miles/450km from Fort Smith.)

So the dad in this story drove at least SEVEN HOURS round trip, to pick up a bushel of plums for his little girl, in the hope that some almost-out-of-season fruit would convince her to go on living.

Okay.

It’s bigger than this.

According to Wikipedia, the poet Mary Karr was born in 1955 and grew up in Groves, Texas and “lived there until she moved to Los Angeles in 1972.” So she would have been there when she was 13 and attempted suicide.

According to Google Maps, the shortest driving distance between Groves, TX and Fort Smith, AR is 439 miles (or 706 km for metric using folks).

That’s almost 8 hours of driving.

Almost 16 hours roundtrip.

(I assume he broke every speed limit he could.)

That’s how much this man loved his daughter.

May we all be worthy of such love.

May we all be capable of giving such love.

May we all have people in our lives with which we can share this love.

"my friend from England" "my friend form Ecuador" "my friend from Australia" "my friend from Brazil".. me talking about my mutuals who I've never spoken directly to

i know absolutely nothing about basketball and yet i am completely obsessed with the raptors first round draft pick tonight. look at this guy

and you wont even mention his name is grady dick this app fails me every single day

I took this photo last night to memorialize a legend lol

i thought he was a figure skater from the 80s before i read the caption and saw the reblog with the second pic

yeah sorry i just don't think i can make it out tonight. i have to pick up my wife from her murder trial.

yes of course she did it. why do you think i married her.

image description:

image 1: a tweet from Sergio [flag of Libya] (@ SerajeddinR), timestamped 18:40 on 02 Mar 22

Thinking about the girl who said she wears her hijab inside her own house whenever her husband annoys her

image 2: a tumblr tag from ellie-tarts, who reblogged from professorsparklepants

#husand privileges REVOKED.

image 3: a tumblr tag, no source included

#ramadan mubarak to everyone but to this queen specifically

a little drawing a did of a mama yuty and her baby chillin in the snow!

#That’s a#That’s a blue ringed octopus#You’re going to die do you realise that#It is literally one of the most deadly animals in the world#Not just in Australia or just in the ocean in THE WORLD#Put it DOWN#And go to a hospital jfc via platonic-rabbit 

me tryna find out if this fool died

“The blue-ringed octopus, despite its small size, carries enough venom to kill twenty-six adult humans within minutes. Their bites are tiny and often painless, with many victims not realizing they have been envenomated until respiratory depression and paralysis start to set in.[8] No blue-ringed octopus antivenom is available yet, making it one of the deadliest reef inhabitants in the ocean.”

Holy shit

And this is why I don’t go in the ocean anymore

Also the blue rings literally only show up when it is distressed so this person has angered it!!! You are in danger friend!!!

Actually this guy keeps them as pets they’re on his instagram (william_exotique) and he frequently holds then and I just? Don’t know why? And also every picture or video he posts of them shows the blue rings so they’re always in distress I just do not understand why he’s doing this

#AMY EXPLAIN HOW DUMB THIS GUY IS 

I mean OP pretty much covered it.  A blue ringed octopus is almost on the level of CONE SNAIL on the list of things you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT PICK UP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

But ask and you shall receive,  On this episode of “Fun Facts With Cuckoo,” DEAD.  YOU’RE DEAD.  EVERYTHING IS DEAD AND YOU SHOULD NEVER TOUCH ANYTHING IN THE OCEAN EVER AGAIN.

There are many things that will kill you. [citation needed]

There are fewer, but still many things that will kill you FAST.

There are yet fewer things that kill you fast and by such an overwhelming margin of overkill that nervous laughter is our only solace in the dark of this terrible, surprisingly Lovecraftian world of unearthly horrors that we live in.

Of the things that I know about which will kill you fast via just plain insultingly potent venom, which is a not insignificant number of things because I know a not insignificant number of things, there are about 3 things in the ocean – IN THE WHOLE OCEAN – which are so insanely, mind-bogglingly deadly that there is pretty much no possible hope for survival (I mean you CAN, but god help you if you’re ever in that situation, because god’s just about damn near the only thing that CAN help you).  THE. WHOLE. OCEAN.

Those three things are the Irukandji (a tiny (1cm) species of box jellyfish, which has stingers not only on its tentacles but on its BELL, for reasons no one has definitively figured out, and is so toxic despite its size its sting can cause a severe brain hemorrhage), the cone snail (a group of carnivorous sea snails that is accepted to be the most venomous animals on earth, with a STUPIDLY fast acting and extremely powerful neurotoxin that has in at least one case killed a human ALMOST INSTANTANEOUSLY, because the swimmer who found two beautiful shells (unfortunately cone snails tend to have very pretty shells which makes people want to pick them up) was holding them up for a picture and ended up being stabbed in the neck by not one but TWO cone snails at the same time, and it is believed that she was literally dead before she hit the ground, I mean LITERALLY in a 100% non-fictional and non-exaggerated way, in between the time the two cone snails stabbed her and the time her limp body hit the sand, she was not alive anymore), and the blue ringed octopus.

It is POSSIBLE to survive any of these.  But not without immediate medical attention.  Of these three, the Irukandji is by far the most treatable, because Australia and other coastal regions (including Florida and other parts of the US) are kind of experienced in dealing with box jellyfish.

The blue ringed octopus will fucking kill you.  There’s no antidote for their venom, ONE COMPONENT OF WHICH (tetrodotoxin) is 1200 times deadlier than cyanide.  It’s a powerful neurotoxin (most of the worst venoms are because the species that produce them need to kill or at least paralyze their prey quickly, like jellyfish whose fragile tentacles could be damaged if their food doesn’t stop struggling) that attacks the sodium channels and causes muscle paralysis.  It doesn’t necessarily kill you quickly.  It PARALYZES you quickly, so that you can’t really call for help or describe the problem, and you will probably end up slowly suffocating from a paralyzed diaphragm.  Tetrodotoxin can be metabolized by the body in a matter of hours, but it can also kill you in a matter of minutes if you get a lethal dose (which isn’t much, the LD50 or median lethal dose, the dose at which you have a 50% chance of survival, is only 8 MICROGRAMS per kilogram of body weight (as tested in mice)).  This is, by venom standards, not a large amount, which means the animal that is capable of putting this venom inside your body is very very good at killing the absolute shit out of you.

DON’T TOUCH THE BLUE RINGED OCTOPUS.

Now, because overkill is my motto, let me briefly explain why Conus geographus is the undisputed champion of YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE, AND FURTHERMORE FUCK YOU FOR THINKING OTHERWISE.

A cone snail walks into a bar.  You’d expect the bartender to ask, “what’s your poison,” but they were paralyzed before they could ask and OH LOOK they’re already FUCKING DEAD ON THE GROUND.

Conus geographus is about 4-6 inches long and nature’s equivalent of Avada Kedavra.  Cone snails literally have their own KIND of toxins named after them: conotoxin.  Not only is there no antidote, but their venom AGGRESSIVELY RESISTS our ability to find a cure, because we barely understand how it works AND conotoxins are so internally varied, even within a single species, that any one antidote isn’t going to help because they’re constantly mutating and evolving their venom to prevent their prey from evolving a resistance to it.  Plus their venom is like, a bunch of different venoms all at once JUST IN CASE any one of them wasn’t good enough.

I want you to read these two sentences from the wiki page on conotoxin:

Remember how the LD50 of tetrodotoxin is 8μg/kg?  Conotoxin is 160 times more potent.  FIFTY NANOGRAMS PER KILOGRAM HAS A 50% CHANCE OF KILLING YOU. A 220-POUND HUMAN HAS A 50% CHANCE OF SURVIVAL AGAINST JUST 5 MICROGRAMS OF CONOTOXIN.  

I DID SOME MATH.  

IT WOULD TAKE 7-9 MILLIGRAMS OF CONOTOXIN TO KILL A BLUE WHALE, THE HEAVIEST ANIMAL TO EVER LIVE. (based on weight estimates from 300-400,000 lbs.)

Conus geographus is so fucking deadly that “In two cases of envenomation, only 0.0002-0.0005 mg resulted in severe paralysis.”

THIS THING KILLS STUFF SO HARD THAT BEFORE YOU HEAR THE FIRST “MORTAL KOMBAT” IN THE MORTAL KOMBAT THEME, THERE’S PROBABLY ALREADY BEEN A FATALITY.

And guess what?  Cone snails don’t do that NOOB SHIT with the superficial biting or stinging.  Your wetsuit or gloves won’t protect you.  Because homeboy didn’t bring teeth to evolution’s knife fight.  Oh no.  It brought a motherfucking radula POISON HARPOON.  It’s lightning fast and has way more piercing power than some silly little cnidocytes or salivary bacteria.

Another component of their venom is being researched for its potential as a pain reliever.  “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT????” you might reasonably ask.  And you would be right to do so, because science has gone too far and has surely sinned against the very image of Mollusca Kedavra.  Well, it turns out the answer is “Research shows that certain component proteins of the venom target specific human pain receptors and can be up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine without morphine’s addictive properties and side-effects.”  That’s right, the part of their venom that SPECIFICALLY DOESN’T HURT YOU is up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine.

Also, Conus geographus (along with one other cone snail species, C. tulipa) is the only known non-human animal to weaponize insulin.  In addition to the normal insulin that the snails produce for their own use, their bodies manufacture an ADDITIONAL insulin molecule that is similar to the kind produced in fish (which they eat) for the sole purpose of stunning their prey through hypoglycemic shock.  BECAUSE APPARENTLY THEY DON’T FEEL LIKE THEY’D KILL YOU HARD ENOUGH OTHERWISE.

IF you are going to survive the ALMIGHTY CONE SNAIL, WHO KNOWS NO FEAR, TRIUMPHANT HEDGEMON OF THE MOLECULAR ARMS RACE, TRUE BORN HEIR TO THE SCYTHE OF DEATH ITSELF, FISHSLAYER, GOD AMONG MOLLUSKS, WHOSE WRATH IS MERCIFUL ONLY IN ITS BREVITY, ADMIRABLE IN ITS BEAUTY AND UNSULLIED BY THE UNWORTHY TOUCH OF MORTAL HANDS OR SCALES OR REALLY ANYTHING IN RANGE OF ITS RADULA HARPOON, then literally the only thing that’s going to save you is for you to be kept alive artificially (externalizing your respiratory functions to force your body to continue breathing, basically) until the effects of the venom wear off.  And because of how quickly this venom acts, you need to get that medical attention VERY, VERY FAST.

And if you don’t get it, you will still be conscious while the paralysis slowly suffocates you to death.

Don’t touch the pretty shells.

this is a WONDERFUL use of the medium of the tumblr post

YES.

A perfect educational rant.

Minute traces of tetrodotoxin are what makes fugu (pufferfish) sashimi such an exciting entrée. Improperly prepared fugu can be very exciting indeed, to the extent that the over-excited diner loses interest in anything else.

Like, for instance, breathing.

The end part

Can’t not reblog something this terrifyingly educational.

I see lots of "let people enjoy things" in fandom but no "it's not the end of the world if people don't like this thing you like, chill out" which is a shame I think fandom could benefit a lot more from the latter than the former

im never drawing a banjo again 💥