Hmmm... You all seem to be under the impression that the high cost of textbooks has something to do with the production cost of the media. If that were the case, then eBooks and MP3s of audiobooks would be much cheaper than their hardcover comrades. A quick review of Amazon.com shows that to not be the case. Textbooks are a racket. Read Feynman for some anecdotes about this: http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm

40V! The phone company sends pulses of 40V over your line when your phone rings (to run the solenoid in the bell in an old school phone) 1. sign up for land line phone service, and don't pay. Give only landline number as contact info 2. use land line number to enter as many internet "free iPod" contests as possible 3. hook up a transformer and battery charging system to phone line 4. profit!

It's called a design patent and they are almost worthless except for stopping exact knock-offs. Design claims have no bearing on function so he didn't "patent a staircase", he patented "that particular look of a staircase".

It was called a Capshare. You can buy them now on eBay for $3-400.

TX works great for this. I use it around my house for the same purpose, portable web browsing. A several year old model used regularly still has a battery life of several days. Don't count on any support from Palm though. You can probably even get a few good reference apps, like the Dewey decimal index or something. Nice big screen and shirt pocket-sized. eBay has several.

See Connections, Episode 1: "The Trigger Effect". James Burke is relevant today as it was in 1978. Episode Summary.