That reminds me of something else I often wonder about myself. Many (most?) people seem to say they don't dream all that much, or never remember them. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, where I could swear I'm *always* dreaming, and assuming I don't have to rush, whenever you wake me up I could tell you about the dream in great detail. I cannot remember a time when I woke up and didn't think I'd just been dreaming. I've often wondered if somehow I'm not getting into the deeper sleep that other people do, or what exactly is going on with me.

To time it that well, you must be able to go to sleep pretty quickly? I know there are people like that out there who can lie down and be out in less than 5 minutes, but it's alien to me. I'd say 15 is a minimum, 30-45 minutes is typical before I actually fall asleep. On rare occasions when I'm desperately tired and start to fall asleep in less than 5 minutes, the rapidity of descent actually startles me and tends to wake me up.

I had a similar discovery with kids, although I concluded it wasn't so much that I was functioning normally as I just didn't feel the pain or notice the fog anymore. As they've gotten older and I've started getting more sleep, that imperviousness to the discomfort of being short on sleep has disappeared again. (I can remember one night, rocking an angry child at 3 a.m. where I thought to myself, "I slept from 11 to 3, so that's 4 hours. Even if she takes forever to go back to sleep this is already a pretty good night!" Yes, I did immediately realize that sounded pretty absurd.)

Outside of the newborn months, I like 8 if I can get it, but 7 is just fine. 6 leaves me tired, and anything under 5 makes me feel foggy. One very occasional night of 5 isn't too big of a deal as long as I get rest the next night, but two in a row of less than 5 and I feel pretty wrecked.

That's your problem. Get called three times a day from a genuine business that can be pulled into court, and you're golden. The scammers probably aren't even based in the same country you are, or at the very least (if they're smart) they don't keep their money there.

Makes sense. I've been looking into this as a self-published author, and your numbers definitely work out, or should even be maybe more extreme. Selling an ebook through Amazon for $5 gives a 70% royalty, or $3.50. Print versions through CreateSpace are going to vary depending on production values, but may end up being around $5 for the cost of creation, and then Amazon will cite a minimum price (I was seeing around $10 or $12, again depending on the number of pages), though that doesn't give the author the same royalty. I think I had to pick $12.50 (shorter book) and $14 (longer book) to hit the same $3.50 royalty. So at least from the perspective of a self-published author, the ebook can be less than half.

Now that's for print on demand. A traditional publisher run definitely costs less per physical book, so the ratio of electronic to print price ought to be smaller. A 30% discount on electronic may be reasonable.

That model actually makes a lot of sense to me. Pay more if you're impatient and want to see it new, pay less when it's older. You see that kind of system regularly with DVDs, where a new release may be $20, but it'll be $15 or $10 after a year, and in the $5 bin a few years later. Computer games, too, except that you're starting at $60 and going down in several steps to $20 and then maybe $10 or $5. What's really amazing is that books are so insensitive to this trend.

But it *is* 70% to Amazon for books between $0.99 and $2.98. Maybe that's justified by the fixed costs Amazon faces, which are a greater percent of a smaller price, but it still seems absurd to me. Of course my response is just to not price ebooks under $2.99, and then I can avoid it.

When you have "extremely powerful primitives" the only thing you can do is drop.

Just say you tried to start your own business, and now you're returning to the corporate world. Nobody's going to care.

In terms of getting rid of the cold itself, sure. But some remedies treat the symptoms, and in that at least some relief can be provided.

This has nothing to do with purchases, and is for the lending libraries only. It's primarily a maneuver to limit some kinds of fraud and scams, or publishing techniques that game the system. Amazon makes no more money by applying this change.

This is completely inaccurate. See all the other notes that this is for the lending libraries only. Amazon pays out the same total regardless, but they're redistributing royalties in a way designed to better reflect reader enjoyment. This change doesn't result in Amazon keeping any more money than previously.

Currently you can perpetrate the exact same fraud with botnets downloading the book and never opening it or turning pages. This only makes it harder than it presently is.

I don't think the examples you cite will significantly affect the program. For instance, stalling on a page while you sleep doesn't do anything. Turning to a page today that you don't actually read until tomorrow doesn't do anything. Turning one more page, waiting until tomorrow, and then deciding the book is junk that you're not going to finish, gives the author credit for exactly one additional page read, which is a minimal difference in royalties.