I don't think that's it's as much a "problem" as a particular implementation of a shared social object (an education system/philosophy). As such, it has its ups-and-downs. The American system favors to promote well-rounded creative challenging thinkers as opposed to highly skilled scientists or mathematicians - that stuff is relegated to advanced and post-graduate study. From first grade through high school and college, even when you finally elect a speciality, you're still expected to study other things.

The down-side to this system is that it can discourage and neglect individual student's strengths. I'd be a better programmer today if I'd been on a tech track from an early age - I'll never know what I might have achieved if I hadn't spent so many hours of my formative years studying things that have little practical value for me now, some years into my career.

The up-side is that the system often produces what it alludes to in concept. Certainly America and Americans have plenty of problems education and otherwise, but American is still a place that places a huge value on creative thinking, of being a masterful engineer and just a little bit more - and it presents opportunities to those who can innovate in spaces where others are simply engineering.

None of the "studies" cited are anything more than anecdotal - but the bigger shortcoming of this assessment, is that it's entirely predicated on the assertion that typing is the most important part of being a student. I don't think there is anyone in the world who would consider *any* tablet superior at typing/note-taking than a laptop - that's an obvious conclusion. It may very well be that taking notes and transcribing lectures will remain the primary utility of higher-education technology, but I think that's a sad and limited view - and certainly not one that this article takes any interest in thinking past.

I'm sorry is there some evidence of this "bribing" you speak of? Schools do and have pay for fancy gadgets - when I was in school, they were shelling out a couple hundred bucks a pop for graphing calculators that probably cost TI $15 to make. I guess we didn't "need" them given that most of us had a few pcs in a class and likely one at home, but it was still a particular tool suited to a particular job, and it furthered the goal of assisting education as described and overpaid for. This goes on every day, but of course the Apple logo irks many to the extent they'd refuse to acknowledge any actual benefit that the device would provide - and I'm sorry, but I just can't help but think that it would.

With all due respect, that's a pretty subjective opinion. After we acknowledge that their isn't an equivalent product on the market today that sells for less (please spare me the "But you could just build your own linux tablet/netbook!" slashpartyline), we can admit that while, yes, Apple does make margins on iPads, so do educational text book publishers - and have you seen what those cost? The profit margin on a secondary school hard-bound biology book is probably orders of magnitudes higher than Apple's take on an iPad.

Tablets offer us new and rich mediums for teaching. Of course there will be downsides to a digital shift, but anyone who takes a stand firmly against the proliferation of tablets in schools does so in the face of overwhelming and obvious evidence that they can serve an unprecedented function - sitting around and saying "a laptop is better and cheaper!" totally misses the point - tablets and laptops can and should work in harmony in the future, they're not mutually exclusive in task or function, but each certainly can have it's place - and different schools are free to choose (here's wishing they all had the means to make whatever choice they wanted) different devices from different manufactures for different platforms. That's how schools have made decisions about technology for years, and despite lack of funding, it seems to have worked just fine.

So your question in 1994 would have been, if not books as books or paper, how is a laptop a "very useful tool in teaching/learning?"

More cumbersome? I mean, there are plenty of arguments against tablets but that's not one. Headline: School uses tablets as education tool! Wow, really controversial. Toss the Apple label on it, and despite the fact that every other manufacture of tablets (yeah, all two, a year after Apple) costs either the same or more, and you have a bevy of irate slashdoters, all irate at the notion. Absurd.

Yeah, or rent a server-by-the month from almost any host in the world.

You're absolutely right. The amount of sensationalist and utterly pointless crap that passes for news these days is pathetic in main stream media. The New York Times isn't mainstream, and doesn't behave this way. Occasionally they get something wrong, yes. But every single day, they publish a paper that gives comprehensive insight into the world's affairs, written with clarity and which demonstrate the talents of arguably the world's best news journalists and writers. It's of huge value to our society, and it's worth paying for, not just via ads.

How many reporters do you know? I happen to know one or two writers for the NYT that make a pittance of a salary. Yes, they get reasonable expense accounts. Most journalists in this country would be lucky to have *that*.

And why do they get expense accounts? Why does anyone in any industry get an expense account? For one thing, it enables (in principle) the worker to perform their job better than they otherwise might. For a journalist, it's the opportunity to meet people over drinks and lunch, make connections, learn about things. You may consider this superfluous, but there are plenty of people who are willing to pay for journalism that realize it isn't.

Second, the accounts are a perk, yes. And why shouldn't they be? News and journalism works in free-markets like everything else. In every sector, you have people who do mediocre work, bad work, good work, and amazing work. Companies and markets strive to compensate them accordingly. So if you're a top tier journalist, who's to say a company shouldn't offer you an expense account to do your job? You can argue again that it's a waste, but you'd better toe the same line when it comes to every other business sector under the sun.

Journalists, editors, publishers, all are individuals who do potentially rough work (not in every case, but in some) that serves broader society in a way that is both practically relevant and creatively compelling. They deserve to be compensated, compensated well in some some cases, and not just by someone looking to make a buck off an ad placement on a blog.

I appreciate your comments and I'm sure you know a lot more about underlying security mechanisms than I do. That said, the proof is in the pudding - I've never seen a Mac hijacked by malware, and almost every PC I've seen at some point or another has been.

The market share argument is total bullocks. For a security expert you seem somewhat ignorant of the "not-a-zero-sum-game" principle, by which there is (throughout broader society) no demonstrated correlation between the preponderance (market share) of targets and the quantity of attempts to attack them. Hence, despite the fact that the wealthy only represent a small fraction of human society (I dunno, like 5%? Smaller than Apple's computer share, to be sure), they are still targeted *more* often by thieves than the huddled masses, etc: Why? Because even though there are far more average people (with or without in-home-security) to attack, the wealthy present a compelling opportunity. Why only try to steal from one when you could steal from both? You can apply this argument almost anything; go wild. Remember also that malware has been written and circulated for nuclear plant controller system software (I forget the details, but I think the total install base for this particular package is like 5 or 6 units - but still represented a "compelling opportunity" for someone).

Further, by virtue of the fact that Mac's aren't loaded with 3rd party security software, that their users don't expect malware, that there is NOTHING else in Mac malware space, and that the demographic of Mac users is financially "elite" - if I were a hacker, I can tell you which niche platform I'd have my eye on. It's pretty obvious. Not worth the effort? Really? Says you.

Just like car thieves never target BMWs or Mercedes because of their paltry market-share. Right.

He may or may not be an asshole. What is indisputable is that whether you agree or disagree with the state of technology in America (and the world, it's a sector we dominate), Steve Jobs started Apple in a garage, and this is the company that introduced most of the world to computing as we know it. Respect is due.

This is a good point, and also speaks to the fact that Apple is really quite unique in many ways.

Personally, I think Apple is currently valued properly. I think Jobs is remarkable, and I'll be very sorry to see him leave Apple (and here's hoping that it's on his own terms, years from now) because it will have a huge impact on the character of the company. As far as the stock goes, it will take a hit, probably not more than a few percentage points, but it will also be poised to resume rapid growth as long as the company continues to produce, certainly for the forseeable future.

I also think Apple's market opportunities in the next few years are literally unprecedented in business terms. There will be competition, but Apple products are undenyling uniquely compelling to a lot of people, it's very possible that in five years the majority of people on this earth could be carrying around iPhones in their pockets, all funneled by Apple's content offerings, locked into their content models. Many look at this cynically, personally I don't, but no company has achieved that kind of placement to date. They have an eco-system, and people go wild for it. Exxon is currently the largest publicly held company; I don't know what margins are on barrels of oil, but consider your relationship to your smart phone versus that to your local Mobil station. Sure, we use lots of oil, but it very people fall in love with the "magic" of a brown viscous sludge

Apple is huge already, and eventually they'll loose it - but it could be 5 years, 10, years, it could be 20. In tech companies have so far risen and fallen very quickly, but as the market matures, things will stabilize a bit, the landscape will change. If Apple is already almost as big as Exxon in 2011, consider the implications of having invested in Exxon (Standard Oil) company at the onset of the industrial age - and having held that stock through today. Apple is poised for massive growth.