So, in yesterday's story about predicting the collapse of civilization, multiple posters snarked about how convenient it is to make predictions about what will happen 30 years from now, 'cause no one will remember you made those predictions--so you'll never be called to account for your oh-so-incorrect doomsday predictions.

I now calmly await for yesterday's posters to issue "I can see now that I was wrong" statements.

No, because the multiple predictions are not random, the way thrown darts are. This is Science 101. Multiple models are proposed to explain and/or predict an observable phenomenon. The model that makes the the most accurate predictions gains credence over the others.

This doesn't completely address your concern, but I did run across this statement in the iBooks Author helpfile:

"Note: In iBooks Author, video and audio files used in HTML widgets are not DRM (digital rights management) protected."

FWIW

The interactivity is far, far more than simple indexing and glossary-lookup. I downloaded Apple's "Yellow Submarine" book a month or two ago. (Looking back on it, it's obvious that they were putting blood in the water for iBooks Author.) Every page had interactive elements; I could tap on an image and a relevant song would play, or a video, or a picture that was interactive, not static. If I recall correctly, the iPad would have read the book out loud.

I've downloaded iBooks Author and am looking at it now. You can add interactive images, image galleries, movies, audio, review questions, Keynote presentations(!), interactive 3D objects, and HTML.

I'm a college physics instructor; I am salivating at the potential of this for a physics textbook. What if my students could, for example, tap on the each of the terms in a conservation of momentum equation (as an interactive graphical element) and the book would tell them the physical meaning of each symbol, and then run a movie showing (say) a collision of two objects (elastic? inelastic? 1-d? 2-d?). Or have a 3-d plot of an electric field that they could rotate right there in their textbook? How about have the relevant (and CURRENT) Wikipedia article pop up INSIDE their textbook? Did a topic get out of date ("hey, we found the Higgs a week after you published your textbook!") No problem, a quick update and the new info is in the book!

I agree with another poster, at this time I cannot justify requiring an iPad (or anything technological that my school doesn't provide), but I definitely see this style of textbook--on whatever platform--as the future. As long as e-texts are simply photonic versions of paper books, I see little value in them. But add this interactivity, and...the possibilities to really transform student learning are breathtaking.

From Google Translate: "Customer feedback" --> "Internet shitstorm"

"Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman.

Or, "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

Hell, anything by Neil Gaiman.

No no no, for the love of God, no!!!

A major aspect of the show is the fact that it is small-screen. Its roots are in the campiness that the early shows had, and that occurred because of the tiny budget and fast turnaround. The effect of that can still been seen today.

The campiness and fun will be eliminated in a Hollywood blockbuster treatment, and it will turn into just another sex-and-explosions vehicle.

"Believe it", in this poll, in this context, is shorthand for "I am persuaded by the evidence to date".

Given the number of true believers here (people I equate with the deniers on the skeptic side), I am wondering how long this post, all of which is factual and can be confirmed with relative ease, will be modded "troll". Seems to happen to all posts that are in any way skeptical.

And you were modded +4 Insightful. Followup comment?

Read the book "The Limits To Growth--The 30 Year Update"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

Many people dismiss this book; but, from the wikipedia article:

In 2008 Graham Turner at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia published a paper called "A Comparison of `The Limits to Growth` with Thirty Years of Reality".[5][6] It examined the past thirty years of reality with the predictions made in 1972 and found that changes in industrial production, food production and pollution are all in line with the book's predictions of economic and societal collapse in the 21st century.[7]

It's been a couple of years since I read the 30-year update edition, but I recall being unnerved by how accurate their predictions have been up to that point; and I see no reason to think things will change. It is not going to be pretty.

A guy fell off the Empire State Building. As he passed the 30th floor, he said to himself, "I'm okay so far!"

Almost; you'd actually be (1/sqrt(2))*married + ((1/sqrt(2))*single. But, imagine the superpositions!

I sure hope any potential employers google "Robert Soloway" and find "Spam king" high on the results list.

The only way that could happen is if a bunch of people all put the words "Robert Soloway" and "Spam king" together on a major website that Google crawls.

Doesn't seem likely...