Electric kettles are becoming more common - I know many in the US who have them now. When I moved here a decade ago, it was an online only purchase, whereas today you can pick one up in Wal-Mart etc.

But yes, kettles here take an age to boil. Some are more efficient at doing the job, but compared to a 240 volt UK kettle it's slow. I just start the kettle for my next cup when I've added milk to the current one.

I believe I linked to both copies that included the MasteringBiology. The only difference seemed to be that US one might have a copy of the text as an e-book. I doubt making an encrypted PDF or equivalent merits the huge price difference.

Still your comment about the probability book is interesting. I wonder if this is particular to mathematics?

Here' s another example from Chemistry: Organic Chemistry by Bruice. In the US it's hardcover, in the UK paperback.

Amazon UK price $99.96
Amazon US price $240.60

it's possible that the difference is the publisher. Coincidentally, the two books I list are published by Pearson who are headquartered in the UK. It may be they price their books for the independent markets, whereas US publishers are more likely to stick to one price? That's pure speculation though and we'd need quite a few more data points to figure that one out.

The US textbook market is crazy.

An easy example is Campbell's Biology Plus MasteringBiology - a pretty standard 1st year Biology textbook. Amazon UK price $87.56. Price for the US equivalent is $190.40.

All we need now is a drug to turn humans into mice.

More like people were overpaying by thousands of dollars because until now none of them had the simple idea to duct tape a filter over a fan.

As you say, none of them had the idea. In a country of 1.4 billion people.

A great many things seem obvious with 20/20 hindsight.

The parent is spot on. If you need to self-sign, then you need the client to trust your signing authority, not simply to trust your self-signed certificates.

Asking them to trust your certificates means teaching them to ignore and click through an important security warning. It not only poses a danger to your users in their internet use elsewhere, but also to your own servers as someone can set up a MITM attack and you have already trained your users to ignore the warning presented by the browser.

Widely trusted SSL certificates can be had for under $10. Wildcard certificates for under $100. There is no reason to have a self-signed certificate on anything public or employee facing.

Can the students even install and use a proper compiler or something like AutoCAD? Photoshop?

How many school kids have a daily need for AutoCAD or Photoshop? I'd imagine only a tiny percentage. So why should a school district equip elementary and middle school kids with a computer powerful enough for tasks that only a small minority of their high-school students need? Would it not be better to give something more powerful (and much more expensive) to just those with the specialist need for something more powerful?

As for a compiler, they could use something like Cloud 9 for cloud based developing.

I put 80-100%, but that's only if you count local streaming. Almost everything here is not watched via Netflix or Plex and the TVs each get a Chromecast.

Ever had your battery die COMPLETELY and then when you charge it, the phone suddenly says "20% full"? That's the buffer The NSA or whomever programmed your phone to shut off and play dead at 20% battery life so that 1) you let down any defenses, and 2) they have *plenty* of spare battery left to covertly monitor your conversations, location, etc. Pretty genius, if you ask me.

Don't suppose you also sell tinfoil hats that could protect me from the NSA's mind-reading rays?

Freedom of speech.

Steam are not the government. They don't owe you anything. You're welcome to set up your own games company with freedom of speech as a founding principal if you so desire.

It's never been criminal.

Are you a lawyer in the UK? The Crown Prosecution Service say that deliberate infringement may be criminal.

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 also lists criminal penalties such as those copied below. It might be worth getting competent legal advice given jail time is a pretty significant punishment.

(2A)A person who infringes copyright in a work by communicating the work to the public—
    (a)in the course of a business, or
    (b)otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,
commits an offence if he knows or has reason to believe that, by doing so, he is infringing copyright in that work.

(4A)A person guilty of an offence under subsection (2A) is liable—
    (a)on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or a fine not exceeding £50,000, or both;
    (b)on conviction on indictment to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or both.

Presumably most domain owners have some technical savvy, no? I have gotten dozens of those letters and they went right in the shredder.

And how many times do you think someone in a management position finds it lands on their desk and then, thinking it's a valid bill simply sends it on down to accounts for payment. Even if the folk doing the registration are typically tech savvy, that doesn't mean it will be a tech savvy person that receives the 'renewal notice'.

Then there are those that set up a website from one of the many one-click web presence builders. Folks like builders and plumbers who again may not be tech savvy. Perhaps their partner simply pays the bills as they come in, or they do it themselves in the evening. Never having owned a domain before, they see no reason to believe this isn't legit, so off goes the check.

I don't think the OPs point was that the waits for check in and security are such that the miracle that is manned flight has been wasted upon us. Rather that if we are going to spend money (and yes any cost comes from tickets, so it's a collective we that will pay for this) perhaps there are other parts of the airport experience that would deliver a better return.

Frankly when I have been able to use automated check in, the existing terminals have been pretty clear and efficient. They're certainly not the most stressful part of the flying experience.

Allow me to take these blinders off of you and show you the entire industry that is hiring illegals to pick your produce. In fact, do a search for "H2 workers" and be amazed by the wonders of our legal system.

You seem thoroughly confused. You talk about an industry of illegals and then suggest we look at those legally here on H2B visas as an example.

Are you suggesting that there's a huge amount of US workers just waiting to pick fruit and plant pine trees? And the only thing holding them back is that the minimum wage is too high?

Then the problem is finding good work. Self publishing appears to come with a stigma, and many authors seem to be dismissed from receiving praise because their work is self-published, perhaps with an exception for authors who already had a publisher and have left simply to make money.

Now I know some authors who make some money self-publishing, mostly in niche market areas where it might be easier to get noticed. But, for other markets I think people have become reliant on publishers acting as some sort of minimum quality filter, and their associated marketing departments for bringing books to the purchaser's attention.