So which do you fall under? Your missing the third option that looks at the appropriateness of the development and considers *IF* it is good and should be used. I personally fall into that third category

I actually evaluate technology and use it as I find appropriate. I still buy some physical books (with illustrations, or on topics where it's better to flip back and forth, such as instructions, or as gifts for Kindlephobes). You seem to be more in the second class than the third.

The problems you cite for digital media are just different from those of physical books. That first printing copy of Dracula you read is one a a very tiny number of that run that still exists; most of those books are dust. Most people can read Dracula today because publishers still reprint it; if not for that, it would no longer be available to the overwhelming majority of the world. Many books no longer exist in any form; many more exist only in a small number of physical copies where you and I will never know they exist, much less have the chance to read them.

I have lots of files on various media now that were once on floppy. ASCII is a very durable format. The obvious response to preserving content is to transfer it to new media. It's happening now; you've probably done it. When I move on from my Kindle, I will take un-DRM'd copies of the books I want to keep, and transfer them to new media. (Locked safe? I can break into it if I need to.) Within a couple of years, Amazon will probably remove the DRM for me, so I won't have to break any laws. Just like music, books will be sold without DRM. How quickly that happens depends on people (like me) who buy digital media, and migrate to the distibution channels that move in that direction.

The thing I find odd is that some people (you seem to be one) are still saying "IF!" or "NO!" to digital books. We're well past that, and now we're working out the "How".

I'm sorry your school chose a bad implementation for digital textbooks. Maybe if you organize enough protest, they'll choose a better one.

This is exactly it. They want people to pay $100 a month for useless, locked in plans. Phone deals like they used to do with land lines in the past will come back again, more money for them. If the FCC forces them to offer $10/mo plans with no extra fees, then sure, but somehow I doubt AT&T wants that.

This comment you are replying to is not how hard it is, especially not to a newcomer as you niece, but about familiarity.

One of the key arguments against MS Office alternatives prior to Office2007 was the inconvenience, and possible financial costs, of retraining for people already familiar with Office. It wasn't that the alternatives were harder to use (Office was no paragon of truly intuitive design and neither were the alternatives so the difference in that respect was a close to naught as makes not odds), it was that they were different. Pro MS commenters quietly dropped the argument shortly before Office 2007 arrived and the same argument is now being landed on the newer MS products by promoters of alternatives.

I've not used Office 2007 enough to form a definite opinion though I suspect I won't particularly care either way - if it does the job without being too irritating I'll use what-ever tool I have available. I use Office 2003 those few times I need such a thing at work (I'm a developer/DBa/SysAdmin at a small company so have little time to use office applications even when I would want to (documentation and test plans usually falling to someone else with some guidance and later editing from myself and others in my position, and documentation intended for users and/or trainers is definitely better prepared by people not like me) and OO.o for personal stuff (both on my main home PC and netbook). I have encountered Office 2007 at work, but only briefly. I know people who do use it regularly though and their opinions range from love to hate covering everything between, and there seems to be little correlation (after the initial training/retraining period) between the sort of person (in terms of their overall techie-ness and level of previous experience with such applications) and which end of the spectrum they sit closet to - so I suspect that in the long run it simply comes down to difficult-to-objetify personal preference.

Ubuntu has one: He's called Jono Bacon and has his own one-man metal band.

"Nokia does have user-friendly interface" .... I guess the only good thing is all Nokia phones use the same charger. Well at least the "old" and the "new".

I got the impression that their atmosphere is very different, because humans had to hide behind the transparent mask to breathe properly. Simply high amount of CO2 cannot do that. Even on earth, we have 70-75% inert gas (for our breathing purpose) and we breathe quite fine. Was it mentioned that atmosphere is similar to earth's?

I agree with your statement about seeing electromagnetic radiation because we see best in the wavelength range in which solar radiation filtered by atmosphere reaches best on earth's surface.

But about audio frequencies, even if the atmosphere is similar, it can carry various frequencies. Humans hear well in only a particular frequency range. Even different organisms on earth do not hear/emit sound in the same frequency range: elephants, dogs, bats, snakes all have vastly different audio frequency sensing ability despite living in the same atmosphere.

But having said all that, still the amount of similarity with an independently evolved species is too uncanny for me to digest. 2 eyes, 2 ears, a nose with 2 nostrills, 2 arms with hand like endings, a navel, 2 legs, tendency to hide one's groin, hair like thing on head and rest of the body relatively hairless? Doesn't seem to be realistic.

That law in France was declared unconstitutional by there "Conseil constitutionnel" (constitutional council) http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/10/frances-three-strike.html

Last I checked, all eight of the appendages were called "arms", all of which can and are used for propulsion (c.f. the video in TFA) as well as manipulation of objects and a range of other uses.

So what, the customer have a faulty bit, manufacturer reimburse that customer, it's not like everybody have the same 'flaky bit'. Now, if hundred of people have similar issue, chance that everyone of them have the same flaky bit is unlikely. Even let say that particular video card have a design issue(or driver or api etc), then more people would get problems. then the game manufacturer do some investigation and check why their software doesn't work where thousand of other do.. and find a fix. Myself, I generally use only tested and proven techniques and call. I don't try to be clever nor use the latest API extension (DirectX 2012 FTW). specially when the basics works just as well. I even try to be as generic as possible, and limit my use of the platform specifics. In case I need to port to other platforms. and that make it quite stable, even more, the next programmer that do maintenance on my code doesn't have to know every tricks and obscure call to understand what happening, more gain there!

Bolex make [motion picture] cameras, not watches, and were very important in the early television news reels. Even today they are a staple in film schools.

Both planes arrive with bad timing
Even two years late seems like okay timing for a plane with better fuel economy, quieter, potentially better air quality, better radar-evading, etc.

Trust me the right to second sale isn't as clear cut in case law as you might think. I have been involved in a case like the one I described and it ended up costing A LOT.
Also no sane company trusts in the concept of Fair Use to cover them anymore.
I think the whole think is a lot fuzzier than a lot of people are comfortable with. So far the FOSS supporters have seemed to be working within common sense and good manners to resolve any "issues" but there is a lot of wiggle room that makes me nervous.
Here is an example.
A small PC store started to include a CD of FOSS programs like Gimp, FireFox, Thunderbird, 7Zip, Putty, and other good software that everybody in the know downloads. It is a nice introduction to FOSS for the customers. Now it seems to me that the store is now responsible to keep the source code for many of those programs available to the people they gave the disk to.
At that point I just wouldn't do it since it could be a huge legal hassle and risk for no real gain to me.

So you're telling me that they also need differently-shaped processors, pci wireless cards, ram sticks, gpu's, usb ports, etc? These are all components with a fixed size and they manage to get them to fit into their design. I'm sure that if a few thoughtfully designed, standardized battery shapes and sizes were mandated, they'd find a nice way to make em fit by adjusting things like speakers, keyboards, motherboard, heatsink/pipes, fans and the like.

There are standard sizes for rechargeable lithium ion cells. But different laptops use packs with different numbers of cylindrical 18650 lithium-ion cells.

Well, this is the science of pizza cutting. And pizza is never a waste of time. ;)