So why do the paperback versions of a $15 hardback book generally cost $7 - $8? Paperbacks as well as Hardbacks still need all of the above support personnel you speak of. At $9.99 Amazon is STILL coming in above the paperback price of most books.

I'm sorry, but the arguments that Scalzi puts forth above are absolute shit, and you have the hint of schill about you. There is no reason that the electric format should cost anywhere near the cost of a hardback. Hell, IMHO the electronic format should really be below the paperback price because of the lack of dead leaf being used for its production... but I can understand the industry's desire to hold on to their model and I feel, much as Amazon seems to, that $10 is a reasonable compromise.

If they REALLY want to milk the consumer they should use a similar model for E-books that they use for paperbacks; as in, release the first edition hardback at $15, wait a month for sales to start becoming stale, then release the paperback and E-book at the same time at the reduced rate.

Hell, at the retail outlet I used to work at, manager made a blanket policy that if the POS returned a request for an Auth code we just outright declined the transaction, handed the customer an Experian business card and asked if they had another form of payment. If the customer asked if he could call his bank to get an Auth code (Red Flag) we would say that our business system did not allow for manual authorizations (which was true. The system the manager put in place didn't allow for ManAuths, even if the POS did).

Ok, insomuch as that, yes, I was wrong and they can extend into the combustion chamber. They still, however, do not provide spark for ignition and other methods can be used to preheat the engine which was the main point.

This guy didn't happen to have a Doctorate in IT, did he?

The glow plug is not even close to similar to a spark plug as it does not go inside the compression chamber and it is not absolutely required for the facilitation of ignition; even on a stone cold engine in Canada in the depths of winter (provided there's at least a block warmer of some kind). It's a wire that preheats the fuel in the injector to ensure that it's of a temperature that when it is injected into the cylinder that the pressure and heat within the compression chamber will cause the ignition. Once an engine is to operating temp, the glow plug isn't needed any longer as the engine itself is generating the heat necessary. Before glow plugs, engines were warmed up by building a fire underneath them to bake them to a point where the internal temperature would be at a level to self ignite. The only thing glow plugs did was to give the process more efficiency and even modern cars with Diesel engines can still be warmed up by baking... provided their bodies are designed to allow for the open flame underneath them without burning parts critical to the other operations of the vehicle.

You haven't worked with Diesel, have you? You know, the engines where ignition is facilitated solely by compression instead of compression and a spark plug? You know... like this?

I built an Android app that all it does is play this sound once after the phone booted fully into the home screen. MechWarrior 2's "Incoming Message" is played as my sms notification through the normal phone settings.

I prefer my whips to be debugged.