No. Sometimes e-books are better, and sometimes they are worse, but I've never found a time when they were the same. E.g., it's much easier to search a plaintext ebook. But it's less pleasant to read one in the bathtub.

That's OK. Given the normal author's contract they wouldn't be significantly paid for an additional e-book copy anyway.

IOW, it's not the authors who are complaining, it's either the publishers or, perhaps, Amazon.

So you're alleging pre knowledge of malicious fraud? (As opposed to inadvertent, where you expected to be able to pay, and can't. I still call that fraud, but not malicious.)

Well, I can't challenge usually, but I also doubt that you can support it. What I can do is refer you to the rather thoroughly documented SCO Group bankruptcy. See the Groklaw record for details.

It's one thing to help the US to spy on someone else, it's another thing to allow the US to spy on them. No surprise. No ethics, either, but that's no surprise.

People have been out protesting, but the press is centrally owned by those who don't want to encourage such behavior. So they don't cover it. It's not like the 1970's, when each city had its own independent newspaper, and many had independent TV stations. Mind you, if you search for protests you can find them documented. They aren't really suppressed, and they are covered in various small areas. But nobody does, so the protests die away...or transform into posts on You-tube.

Additionally, as the population ages the proportion of people who will protest injustice without counting the costs declines. That is an activity mainly engaged in by people in their early 20s. People who are just becoming aware of the political structure of the world, and haven't yet become hardened to it. And who will protest without counting the cost.

Additionally (yet more) there needs to be an acceptable alternative. If all the alternatives seem worse, then it's hard to protest even a clear injustice.

Additionally, the system is designed to channel protests into harmless channels. If you engage in the standard political process, you are marginalized unless you have LOTS of financial backing. If you go into a minor party, you are just about guaranteed to not be electable. This is a result of the plurality wins voting system. If there are 15 parties, then only the two largest have a reasonable chance of electing someone. If there are 3 parties, the same applies. With 4 parties you could theoretically get elected with 25.0001% of the vote, because that would be the plurality. So the rational choice is to always pick whichever of the two biggest parties is the least repulsive...and that what most people do. This may be why so many people just don't bother to vote. It's seen as a waste of effort.

The veneer of the US being the great good guy is also wearing thin inside the US. Jingoists aren't really saying we're good, they're saying "We're the home team". In that sense they've got a point, but there's no reason to expect that anyone outside the US would feel that way.

P.S.: The US has so far been more altruistic and honorable than previous countries have that fell into the same role. This has been declining over time, as should be expected. Human institutions that centralize power become corrupt. So far we aren't as bad as Britain was during their reign, and Britain was better than their predecessor. For that matter the Romans were better than the Greeks. (Well, sort of. The Greeks didn't really last long enough to really become corrupt.) And the Greeks were better than the Assyrians. But if we continue to be so dominant, expect us to become worse and worse. Eventually we'll reach the point where no dominant power would be an improvement. I don't think we're there yet, on a time-averaged basis. Others, experiencing the sharp end of the knife, might reasonably have other opinions.

The real lesson is that people can't be trusted with unchecked power. Nationality and religion are irrelevant. A way can always be found to abuse it.

Sorry. Everyone has a short memory. In a decade nobody will even think about this, and even next year it will be "O, yeah. That's true."

There will continue to be some people who are concerned, but they were already concerned. Now they just have a bit of evidence to point to, if they can get anyone to listen.

My suspicion is that this is really economic, and the contract will be awarded to some German contractor who is "good friends" with the right people.

FWIW I'm *still* a paranoid freak. I don't believe that ANY centralization of power under the control of humans can be trusted. People are corruptible, and worse, some among them are psychotically driven to seek positions of power. At some point any position of power will fall under the control of one of them, and his (these characters are extremely predominately male) first act will be to extend his current power, and his second will be to increase his immunity to repercussions for his illegal, or at least immoral, actions.

Please note that this doesn't mean I think there is any reasonable way to eliminate such concentrations of power. What it means is that I think it should be made as difficult as possible to reach such a position by political maneuvering and scheming. To this end sometimes I suggest that the holder of such a position should be selected by lottery among those technically qualified. This will produce an inefficient government, as those selected would be less adept at diplomatic negotiations and compromise. OTOH, look at the current congress, and contemplate whether it could do worse. I am bothered by isolated positions of power such as the POTUS, but my real feeling is that they should be devolved into purely symbolic offices, and the real power should vest in some small committee, selected, as suggested above, by lottery....and not from any small pool of candidates.

OTOH, I can see the value of voting, if not of plurality wins voting. So I am also moderately supportive of Instant Runoff Voting or Condorcet Voting. They would clearly be an improvement over the current system, though they would increase the problem of information overload at election time.

As for Germany...I suspect that their motives are basically economic, but this time it's causing them to make the correct decision. They should not trust a foreign country with their governmental communications.

IIUC, a cache option would also be illegal. That means letting a third party make a copy of copyrighted materials, and then distribute from that copy.

Don't bet too hard. Disney may have had a good eye for a plot for children's stories, and for what shapes would sell, but he had no morals. In fact he was sort of like a less competent Steve Jobs, except more of his employees hated him.

Probably about equal, but Einstein couldn't have done his work without the foundations built by Newton. Of course, Newton.... Kepler... Tyco Brahe... "and so proceed ad infinitum"

Well, there's been at least one report of illegal drugs being smuggled across the border by drone. Don't know if they caught anything but the drone, though.

Maybe it should fragment into chaff in case of failure. That would ensure light construction.