Reading a tweet or receiving an iMessage is not 'surfing the net'.

"Why is this on Slashdot?"

It has more literary value than:

"I bought a cheap-ass phone and it sucks"

but only barely.

Just when you think that customer service can't possibly get any more creepy, then you read this.

You ask Dr. Walter Bishop.

"Also, you don't have to go to the CNN site if you don't like their ads. No one actually forced you to read CNN. It is their media property, they can do what they wish."

Sure, just as it's our right to render on our screens only what we wish.
And we do that.

"The tactile experience of actually holding a book in your hand, being able to flip the pages, is far better than anything offered by current electronic devices."

Flip pages? Such modern things are just for young whippersnappers. I prefer scrolls, one long page you can scroll. Even computers use that method.

Although my father prefers stone tablets, he says the weight gives it a sense of importance that modern things like scrolls, papyrus and 'books' miss.

"Professional editing isn't just about the appearance of a text on the page, it can also be about making the text coherent and understandable."

I have a copy of "Finnegan's Wake" on my coffee table saying otherwise. :-)

"eBook publishers aren't even needed. Software to convert DOC/LaTeX to ePub &c. will do the trick, with proofreaders/editors employed separately, and hosting services a dime a dozen. All that remains is a searchable database, which is a high school project."

That's Calibre, database included. With a few torrents you have the library of congress on your machine.

"With publishers gone, we all essentially become slush pile readers."

Sure, I decide which font I use on my device, which font size, margin, line spacing and so on, if the author knows where to click for the spellchecker, I'm good with the slush.

All the 25 professions that got axed were just useful when printing on a specific size of dead tree.
I say: Good riddance.

My grandfather had the same problem as a liftboy. The combined forces of Otis and Schindler forced him out of a job.

It's called 'progress'.

Newt Gingrich isn't getting any younger, and that Moon-town needs a Mayor.

As long as you don't get a couple of thousand pacemakers around the body, usually called 'cancer'.

They should send them to the cast of 'under the dome', that's the only place where you see people using them.

I'm glad I'm living in a landlocked country.

"So if only "one in 100 trillion" collisions produce detectable events, and they've only observed "billions" of collisions, then actually detecting just one is shear luck, and reproducing it is next to impossible......."

I must be that they speak Planet an the submitter speaks Imperial. There's several magnitudes of difference.