he had several meters and black boxes his employer had given him but hadn't shown him how to use. He was standing there clipping clips to different connectors, saying "Is this what I hook this to?"

You do realize what search engine is the default in iOS, right?

Sorry, Apple went music DRM free in response to Amazon going music DRM free.

I switched to namecheap a couple of years ago when Gina Trapani of Lifehacker recommended it.

I remember Heinlein saying If you're guilty, you're better off in a civilian trial. If you're innocent, you're better off in a military trial.
From "Starship Troopers", I believe.

When I worked in IT, we never had a problem with ANY customer who wanted to be "self-sufficient".
What we had problems with were the people who wanted to use their own notebook, tablet, whatever, with their own software, but then wanted us to support it when they screwed it up.

I'm wondering how many different "exclusive" editions publishers are going to publish in.
This is stupid. The only paid "exclusive" iPad publications I have are magazines that had a free iPad subscription when you bought the dead-tree edition.

Plus, of course, the amusing bit that ALL Harry Potter ebooks are pirated, because Rowling chooses to have it that way.

J.K. Rowling has STILL refuses to allow the Harry Potter books to be released as e-books (until her own little Potterweb, or whatever the heck she's calling it, is ready) but that sure hasn't prevented her from being one of the most-downloaded authors online. She just doesn't get a penny from it, because she has chosen to go that way.

As compared to Louis C.K. who has taken in half a million dollars in four days by having a DRM-free download of his Beacon Theater performance available for $5.
https://buy.louisck.net/

Or, of course, Cory Doctorow, who manages to do quite well on book sales even with having his books available as free CC-licensed downloads.
http://craphound.com/

Kindles read the epub format? Really? I haven't been able to find a reference to that on Amazon or anywhere else.

yes. All they have to do is claim the money to pay for it came from illegal sources, or that it's being used for illegal activity. They don't even have to bring charges.

Google "civil asset forfeiture" and come up with hundreds of things like this:

http://fedstookmycar.wordpress.com/category/abuse-of-civil-seizure-law/

I've actually gotten several notifications from Amazon that there was an updated version for a novel that had "fixes".

True.

But there's "want to make a lot of money" and then there's "stupid".

J/K/ Rowling refused (and so far as I know STILL refuses) to allow Harry Potter to go ebook, because she's afraid it will be pirated; hence it's one of the most pirated book series available on the torrent sites. It's the only way you can GET them.

Yup... still only available electronically for free. Can't pay for it if you want to.

http://news.yahoo.com/harry-potter-e-book-sales-postponed-until-2012-202829043.html

So all one has to do is be one of the authors of the most linked-to blog in the world ( http://bit.ly/uWa81A ), with something under 2 million readers, publish 6 novels through mainstream publishing channels and have them sell well (partly because of #1; that's a heck of a marketing platform) and THEN successfully self publish a novel, and you say "Get Creative"?

Yes, I love Cory. I love his writing. He has a LOT of excellent points when he talks about publishing. But he's not exactly an example for how the average author can make it in self publishing.

Bingo. You just described a violent crime. Not VERY violent, but violent nonetheless.