E-books have many advantages, but they also have at least two big disadvantages. The first is that you can't sell a used e-book. This is not as important for cheaper paperback products but a significant disadvantage for more expensive books like textbooks. The second disadvantage is that you cannot lend an e-book to a friend.

If all books become only e-books, libraries will go extinct eventually. Also normal printed books don't require any additional equipment. Everybody's got a pair of eyes. All e-book readers have ever seen so far are rather fragile, but printed books are incredibly rugged. They can take abuse that will kill an e-book reader many times over.

Many people have shelves full of decades-old print books. I cannot imagine that there will ever be decades old e-books because electronic devices don't last very long and become obsolete almost by the time you walk out the shop door with one

For me the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages, especially for ever buying a dedicated e-book reader device. At least an iPad can be used for all sorts of other purposes that are often accomplished by a computer.

Only paperless books and the paperless office will happen sometime after we have paperless toilets.

---I simply disallow any electronic devices during exams---

When your students get out into industry, having a real job in the real world, will they not be allowed to use every tool that exists for their work? All electronic devices are tools are they not? Is the entire Internet really not much more than a huge sophisticated library that can be used to get the needed information to help solve problems? Why do colleges and universities artificially limit the tools that the students will use routinely after they graduate? Is a college education not designed to teach people how to solve problems using whatever tools are applicable and available?

It is of course a lot more work to structure your tests and assignments in such a way that the student who has truly learned to solve problems can demonstrate to you that this is true. Multiple guess and true false tests are easy to develop and grade, but rarely if ever test anyone's ability to really solve a problem. Testing for rote knowledge that anyone can look up when they actually need the information is easy. Testing for real knowledge and problem solving ability, independent of the tools used, is difficult. It is your job to teach your students how to think and solve problems. It is also your job to determine if you are really successful at this. That is a lot of hard work for you, the professor.

----When i give my address to an ISP its for billing and maintenance ONLY---

Why do ISPs have to maintain records connecting an IP address with your name and street address? Are they required to do so by law? If not, it seems that an enterprising ISP could get quite a few extra subscribers by advertising that they do not keep any records on the connection between an Internet address and the real physical address of a customer.

When such an enterprising ISP provider then gets a subpoena for this information, they can honestly tell the judge or lawyer that they do not keep this data, at least not for more than a month or two. Is the perpetual keeping of this connecting information really at all valuable to any ISP? It seems that combing through a pile of records by the ISP is not exactly free either. Would it not be cheaper for them to simply send a form letter to the requester of a subpoena stating that they never record or no longer have the requested information.

---A decent lawyer ---
I did not now there was such thing, at least not in the USA.

Jesus the Christ said:

Mark 8:35 For whoever will save his life shall lose it; but whoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's, he shall save it.
Mark 8:36 For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
Mark 8:37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Mark 8:38 Therefore whoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My Words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man shall also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.

No amount of money can buy happiness because only God can and does give blessings to anyone who believes Him and because of that belief does the will of God.

----They tend to hang on longer and die for other reasons---

In the United States life expectancy is about 77.5 to 80 years. That is the same as what God said through the psalmist about 3000 years ago.

Psalm 90:10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Despite all modern medical knowledge and scientific research, the human lifespan today is no better than what God said it would be.

The world average lifespan is 67.5 years which is actually less than what was given to the people who lived 3000 years or more before our time. Now about all of this research can do is to make this allotted lifespan healthier and more pain-free, but not extend it much if at all.

---Both ASC and ESC research may have the potential to cure diabetes, Alzheimer's, etc. ----

If such research really could come up with viable cures for such diseases, then any one of the super rich megacorporation pharmaceutical companies would be doing this without the help of a single cent of federal tax money. They could use as many embryos as they could get a hold of because of the law only applies to the use of taxpayer funds.

They could come up with a patented drug or process and make millions. Obviously they don't see a big pot of gold at the end of this particular research rainbow, otherwise they would be doing this research themselves or at least funding it to be done at advanced university laboratories.

----gloss over the major role that natural selection plays which is not random---

The problem is that natural selection can only confer advantage on a completed working, functional part of an organism. A partially completed, partially evolved organ or system does not confer reproductive advantage and will therefore be invisible to the mechanism of natural selection.

For example, a partially completed red blood cell containing incomplete hemoglobin will not fulfill the oxygen carrying capability and therefore will not confer an evolutionary advantage by the mechanism of natural selection. A large number of changes have to happen all at once in order to get a complex working structure such as the oxygen transport mechanism found in living organisms.

Therefore, although natural selection is a established scientific fact, it is insufficient by itself to explain how many of the complicated mechanisms of life could have arisen by the small incremental changes that natural selection is capable of. Darwin himself admitted this to be true.

If you will simply search for the word "design" or "designed" in this thread, you will find that its repeated use in the numerous reference to the awesome complexity of the human brain, is unavoidable even by ardent evolutionists.

----What authority does the federal government have to regulate the Internet?---

In 1934, after the growth of radio, Congress established the Federal COMMUNICATIONS Commission. This commission was given broad authority over all COMMUNICATION that crosses state lines. Since the Internet is nothing more than another communications system, as is the wireless telephone, all these forms of communications fall under the jurisdiction of the FCC. Theoretically at least, being an arm of the government, the FCC is supposed to serve the common good, not the pocketbooks of the communications providers.

Before broadband services became common, people communicated by telephone, including dial-up computer connections to the Internet. There were efforts then by the phone companies to disallow or charge more for modem connections than for ordinary voice service. Was that horrible idea squelched by government regulation or the free market?

So now the communications companies are at it again, trying to squeeze more dollars out of their customers by charging more or less for different kinds of information traveling over their wires. If the FCC did apply the same rules on the communications providers of the Internet as they do over the communications providers of the telephone system, there is really no one except Congress that could change this. Even the courts would be hard-pressed to challenge the authority of the FCC given to them by Congress long time ago.

----But university isn't free. It can cost a lot of time and money----

In today's world, as in the past, it's always about the work a person eventually earns their living by, that is the number one reason for getting an education. In our world, a degree from a prestigious university will get a person in the door, thereby given the chance by an employer to demonstrate or not the ability to perform a given job.

In times past, throughout most of humanity's history, the employers themselves would train an apprentice to do a given work. This model would still work in many professions or industries, but with the rise of large corporations, the burden of training for a given job is no longer on the employer like it used to be. It is now placed on the shoulders of society as a whole and those seeking work. The corporate employers no longer have to bear the burden of educating the workers, thus making larger profits themselves.

No matter how smart or skillful a person is, they will not be considered for employment unless they have some sort of paper that attests to the fact that they have warmed a chair in an approved school for a certain length of time. The only alternative for a smart and skilled person not possessing said paper is to become an entrepreneur unless they are related to the CEO or other higher up management of a company.

Even Jesus Christ, not being educated by "approved" teachers, would not likely get a job in a modern factory making furniture.

Until this system of filtering for employment is changed, the uncredentialed Internet educated genius is not likely to get a decent job.

In a way, I agree with you. You can't change human nature, at least not easily. However, it would send a message to all politicians especially in the federal government, that the voters are very unhappy with the direction they are steering his country. It would tell them to truly represent the people, as they are supposed to, rather than whoever paid their re-election expenses.

Also, meaningful election reform, such as limiting the amount of money any particular person or group of persons can contribute to a particular candidate would go a long way, to keep our elected officials tuned to the needs and desires of their constituents. It would take a constitutional amendment, to prevent activist judges from simply declaring such a reform unconstitutional.

---- If just voting is not working ---

The only reason that voting is not working, is because people are voting for the same politicians year in and year out. One of the definitions of insanity is: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time".

A simple solution is not vote for anyone currently in office, regardless of whether they are a republicrat or a democan. Give the newcomers, many of which have a better idea, a chance. The voters simply need to clean house once and for all. With all new blood into elected offices, it will take a while at least before the corrupt old boy network can be reestablished.

--- The more I hear of this the more I think we should declare the lot of them "Common Carriers"---

Indeed true, what is the difference between a telephone line and any Internet connection? For a long time, in the beginning, telephone lines via dial-up carried Internet traffic as well as voice. So now, what is the difference, except that we speeded things up a bit? Since the same lines carry both voice and other material, they should still be common carriers. If the FCC had declared the Internet communications providers as common carriers right at the beginning, we would now have none of this controversy. No act of Congress is required for the FCC to decide, albeit belatedly, that there is no difference between a telephone line and an Internet line. In this regard it is a common carrier highway just like a physical highway.