I believe that for a developer, that has to deal with "third-party services that do the hosting, fulfillment, and billing" the 30% cut is a reasonable deal.

But Amazon, Kobo, Google Books, New York Times, etc ... have their own services that do the hosting, fulfillment, and billing. Those subjects often have less than 30% profit on books, thanks to the agency deal that Apple helped to enforce. So for those subject, the 30% Apple cut is unrealistically high.

Look up the Eicar test virus.
It is not a virus as such, just a text string you can create by a text editor, but all antivirus programs react to this and it is fun to see how antivirus reacts to your attempts to save file, unpack an archive or send email.

How long until some virus simply attempts to "unlock" the processor 11 times?
Just for the heck of it.

Russians do not have/use letter H, they substitute G instead.
So Hotel can only be written in Azbuka as Gotel or alternatively 'otel (proper Russian name for Hotel is Gostinica)

For H in formulas or when spelling, for example H2O they use sound
"Ash" - an aproximation of English spelling for H.

Fanless computers for industrial automation, for example the ones made by Advantech can take LOTS of abuse. They work at coke battery plant, steel plant, sintering plant, ... places that can be at least as hostile as a desert.

A nice example is here:
http://www.advantech.com/eAutomation/fanless-box-pcs/Default.aspx

I have deployed Mint Linux several times as a replacement system for non-techie Windows users.

Mint Linux is built on Ubuntu, They have tweaked Ubuntu, added various "non-strictly-free" codecs, drivers and programs. The start menu us on the bottom left and former Windows users just love the 3D effects, desktop cube, wobbly windows ...

You can simply send email to yourself with the book in pdf.

Steve Jobs has demonstrated that at least THAT works.

There is an e-ink device called PocketBook.
http://www.pocketbookreader.com/PocketBook_360.html

There is version with 5" screen and version with 6" screen.

Just yesterday I have downloaded a Blockout game for my PocketBook.
Yes. THAT Blockout - a 3D version of Tetris.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=sk&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://bookfast.org/category/pocketbook/programs&twu=1

No. You can not disable it. You can not change the pictures of dead authors. There is hack that allows you to use your own photos.

Kindle is not the only device on the market.
On PocketBook e-ink reading device you can configure everything. Including "screensavers".
You can switch those off, you can replace the picture, you can have number of pictures and let the PocketBook to randomly display one of those. I have compiled a nice collection of images from M.C.Escher.

http://www.google.com/search?q=quote+steve+jobs+people+don't+read+Anymore&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t