You had a good point, besides your absurd anti-Americanism. In case you didn't notice, the original article is written by a European, in protest again the practice of unpaid internships, which apparently as common in "civilized" Europe as it is in the US.

I still find having a printer to be indispensable, but I definitely print less... but it's probably because I'm not longer a high-school teacher anymore :)

I will say though that as a grad student, I'm definitely printing far less than I did in undergrad./

Musicians get most of their revenue from touring because the record labels realized that they don't really have to pay musicians anything. Musicians receive advances, much as authors do, except that for musicians, that advance goes toward the cost of hiring a producer, studio costs, the band's manager, lawyer, and agents, etc. Finally, whatever's left over of the advance is split amongst the entire band as living expenses. This leaves hardly enough money to live off of. When the record is released, if it is successful, the label recoups the entire cost of this advance before the band sees a dime. If the record ever sells enough to be fully recouped (the vast majority don't), the artist's royalty continues to be partitioned between the entire band, its manager and the producer. Lastly, when it's all said and done, the copyright to the recording belongs, permanently, to the record company, and not the band. The end result is that the average musician earns nothing from recorded music, other than the living expenses the advance provides for and the exposure that it gives them, which allows them to earn more money touring and doing side deals. However, increasingly, record companies are taking a share of all of those other income streams, as well (known in the business as 360 deals).

I'm not an expert in publishing, but as I understand it, it's much more practical to live off a book publishing deal, alone.

I agree with GP 100%. I already have a few dozen paperbacks on my shelf that I've never read, and probably never will. I own DVD's that I may never get around to watching. I have digital cable channels that I probably don't even know about. Bottom line: most people overpurchase when it comes to media. I would agree that this effect is probably less prominent in books than other forms of media, but it remains.

I'm in the same boat as the GP. I own an e-reader, but I don't buy many books in the current market. I'm not that well-read and there are enough public domain classics out there to sate my appetite for the foreseeable future.

The retailers and publishers are going to get the point eventually: they need to move books, or there will be huge attrition in the publishing industry. There is a happy ending, and that is an adjustment of price--end prices and the retailers' shares. I just wonder how much damage the book industry will sustain before it comes to its senses.

There are actually very simple ways to convert between eBook formats. But the spirit of your post is correct--a $10 eBook seems like a rip-off compared to the prospect of buying a much cheaper used book or checking a book out at the library. There are advantages, like portability and the ability to change font size, but on the whole, buying an e-reader currently is hardly a winning proposition compared to paper books in many cases.

I have a Kindle, but I'm definitely planning to continue using physical books, as well. Where the Kindle wins out for me is in its convenience for reading free public domain books and for its usefulness while traveling with regards to phrasebooks, free internet access over 3G, and travelguides.

Eventually, the eBook market will have to standardize. I think digital music has proven that there is a market for DRM-free content and that, furthermore, consumers will not fully adopt any product until they can use it the ways in which they see fit. That means, we either need very low-cost books and flexible options for lending/borrowing, or we need DRM free content. Also, right now, prices are waaay out of line on periodical content and blog content. Those are pretty much a complete joke. Lastly, on the hardware side, we're still at least a couple years away from PixelQi screens that can do a color electronic paper mode, but that option seems like the end-all, be-all of portable screen technologies. So, basically, the eBook market right now is about 5-10 years behind the digital music market, but I think that economics dictates that the situation will work itself out. Eventually.

Thanks for the tip. I have a Kindle, and using the tool you mentioned, I can now buy eBooks from any retailer and use them freely.

While the Android market is managed, it's not managed nearly as stringently (or anticompetitively) as the iPhone market. Also, almost every Android device has a checkbox in the Options screen that will allow you to install apps from outside of the market, so it's patently false to say that you have to jailbreak your phone to have freedom of what you want to install. Furthermore, there are even alternative markets to the standard Android market, so your point is entirely moot. No Android phone on its own will ever have the market share the iPhone has, but this isn't because the iPhone is better, it's because there are so many alternatives, and it's unrealistic to expect that any particular phone model will be so superior that it would achieve dominance. But therein lies the difference between Android and Apple: Android is about choice, Apple is not.

I must admit, I know very little about that sort of biology, but you would think (hope) that the average would realize that if a tree did grow by absorbing 1 ton of mineral/organic material from the soil that the result would be a big-assed hole in the ground around the tree, so by basic experience, neither of those could be the right answer

Thanks for posting. The more people hear about the reality of teaching, the better, because most people really don't understand how difficult it is. You are totally right that the breaks don't make up for the 80+ hour weeks when school is in session, not to mention the fact that many teachers actually work over their breaks too.

I think there is definitely utility in teacher prep programs like BTSA, but only if they are well-designed. In many places, teacher prep is not effective and disconnected from the reality of the teaching process. The strategies they teach might sound great in a vacuum, it's a different story when actual kids show up.

Good luck in your career search. I already posted this earlier, but you might be interested in reading about my experience

It's actually not that hard to get into teaching, if one is willing to put in the work. Many states have alternative certification routes, which are used by programs like Teach For America and and a cornucopia of other programs of varying similarity that operate at state and local levels. Many people are skeptical of the idea of training someone for a summer and then allowing them to be a full-time teacher (with simultaneous continuing training). It's definitely not for everyone, but some people, it's a great way to get involved in teaching without extensive prep time.

Well said, sir!

To a large extent Teach For America is attempting to address this issue, and simultaneously, many school districts are implementing new pay scales and merit pay in order to better compete for the best talent.

But let me also say this: I am a graduate of an Ivy league master's program in electrical engineering and a Teach For America alumnus. I taught high school math for two years in inner-city Baltimore, and it was far and away the hardest thing I have ever done. My engineering program or any engineering work I have done in the past do not even chart in comparison. You can doubt what I'm saying if you want, but based on my own experience and my observation of many other extremely bright, talented, and resourceful people I know, teaching is the hardest job out there that doesn't deal with life or death on a daily basis (I will give the benefit of the doubt to paramedics, nurses, military, police, firefighters, etc.)

So to get to my point, recruiting talented people into teaching is only part of the problem. The more difficult part is training them to teach effectively and retaining them long enough for them to be effective. I, for one, did not last long enough in the career to ever reach my probablypotential. I couldn't handle the stress for more than two years. Had I the heart to stay in the profession, I probably would have continued to improve.

What I'm trying to say, and what may be new to many people on this board, is that the profession of teaching itself needs a complete overhaul. I won't get into the details, but there have been changes and trends in education over the past 10 years that, while well intentioned and possibly necessary, have dramatically increased the difficulty and stress of the job to the classroom teacher, to the point of absurdity.

The details of this thesis are way too much to get into in one comment, but if you are interested in the issues in education, read for yourself the diary of my experience teaching at my teaching journal. I'll warn you though, it's not very light reading.

That's wrong on so many levels. Just because the market will bear a higher cost doesn't mean that a higher cost is a good thing. For instance, if bands and venues really thought that charging maximum money was the best policy for them, they would simply charge the highest price the market would bear in the first place. They could auction all of the seats. But they don't. Why? Because they aren't trying to simply maximize ticket revenue. They don't benefit maximally by only the wealthiest possible people being able to attend shows. They benefit by building fanbase and goodwill. The best fans aren't necessarily the wealthiest.

If you've tried to buy a ticket for a major event in the past several years, you have felt the burn caused by these assholes. I don't know how many events I have seen "sell out" within literally seconds of tickets being made available. It's gotten to the point where I, and many other people I know, simply have given up on trying to get popular tickets.

So, from a purely capitalist standpoint, you can applaud these scalpers for sucking the market dry, but they accomplish this by hurting the suppliers and the ultimate consumers. And what benefit do they provide? Widespread frustration is actually not a good thing for the industry in the long run.

The problem is that market forces often seek an equilibrium that makes sense in the immediate term and does not take into effect externalities. Economics doesn't state that free market dynamics lead to the best possible outcome. Rather, it says that in absence (or even the presence of) regulation, the market will tend to seek that outcome, whether positive or negative. Libertarians, as you seem to be, ignore this aspect and insist in believing in the pipedream that somehow the free market outcome is the most positive. This may be true in some cases, but without knowing the externalities, it is impossible say this is the case a priori.

It's sad that you blindly glorify brigands like these people. Of course they're brilliant. But what they are doing is harmful and wrong, and it should not be allowed.

The issue is not that people are putting super-personal information on Facebook. Most intelligent people who actually care about their privacy know better than that. The problem is that there is a difference between sharing information with the people you know (even if they number in the hundreds) and publishing it to the world for any person or organization to see. I really don't care that much if the whole world knows my favorite movies and interests, but I see no reason to expose that information about me to people I don't know.

What is so aggravating is that Facebook started out as a site for the entertainment of its users, but that has taken a backseat to their ambition to become the new nexus of information on the Internet. Most of their changes could be really nice. By my count, there are three new "features" from the past couple weeks:

• Opt-out Instant Personalization, which shares information between Facebook and several websites, giving them a more social dimension
• Opt-out sharing of basically all of your profile with applications YOUR FRIENDS install on their accounts
• Profile Connections, which networks and makes public most sections of your profile, and has completely replaced those profile sections

But instead of letting users make the decision whether to participate in these new initiatives, they have made them all the new default, or in the case of Profile Connections, it's there way or the highway. Of course Facebook has the right to run their website how they feel, but we as users don't have to put up with it.

In response to Facebook's cavalier attitude, I have deactivated my profile. However, I'm considering reactivating for one particular reason. Facebook is a fact of life now for most people, and it won't miss me much if I never come back. But I do want Facebook to change, and I'd like to continue to stay connected through it. Ironically, I have figured out that the best way for me to mobilize the people I know to demand change from Facebook is by reaching them through Facebook. I think I will try to organize a one day deactivation campaign. My deactivation isn't even a blip on their radar, but if dozens of people deactivate for a day, maybe that will turn some heads.

Well, you could keep it private, if the organization that runs this website provided you with privacy options and acted in a trustworthy and ethical way to maintain these options. Apparently this is a big problem though