If only we could change our slashdot ids... alas!

To think, we invented the Descolada virus?

Most or all ebook formats and/or readers can now give you the location of text as it is in the printed form, which is arguably useful for citations. However, citing can be done without page numbers. MLA and APA guidelines are notoriously slow to update, but they'll catch up, if they haven't already. You could just specify by the chapter/paragraph/word count. Sticking to page numbers is like sticking to a desktop metaphor. It is a metaphor, it is limited and broken by design.

Preserved presentation only works if you're publishing on paper, or targeting a specific form factor (and thus device). iPads are homogenous enough that fixed-format magazines are available for it, for instance. You can make reflowable content work where you would traditionally use fixed layout. Reflowable doesn't necessitate linear, either, webpages can reflow so that they look similar to fixed-layout designs at wide enough resolutions, or become linear with narrow text. Those of us that have been around a while know how bad the web was when people thought they could just transfer their traditional media without redesigning... or when they thought that some high school kid with HTML experience and a copy of Photoshop could drive your online corporate image. Pushing paper design straight into eBooks has the same problem, but luckily, most of the big players have figured this out already.

That all said, yes, some works are better on something like an iPad which has good graphics, a large size screen, and touch. Others are better linear. Even books of the same sort can be written in different styles which extenuates this. Math textbooks as they're used in primary education work better on tablets, while masters-level mathematics books that concentrate on theory are better on an eReader. (As to which style is better would be a digression, lets not go there...)

There is no Javanese flag. Note that there really are a people known as the Javanese, they're not just a typo of Japanese ;-) Javanese are a majority ethnic group of Indonesians, but have no flag of their own (nor do, say, black or white people have a flag, in general). Indonesia has a flag that looks like the Polish one, upside down.

PDF is to preserve presentation. This is precisely what you do NOT want on an e-reader. ePub, which is really just HTML, is designed to provide reflow for e-readers. It can be used with or without DRM.

I imagine that a thickness gauge (which is what is *really* intuitive in the measuring-cup example) or a color-gauge would be more intuitive. The critical point here is that thicker is "more" and thinner is "less". Even with colors you can have "more red" or "less red". Numbers are a higher-form thought process. When dealing with a line system, your general intention is to gauge this same "more or less" comparions, but is abstracted through numbers which is based on a complex thought process of reading and comprehension.

Those companies are not violating the TOS, the employee is. What the company is doing is worse, the company is arguably accessing without agreeing to the TOS at all, which falls under unauthorized access and is criminal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. I think. IANAL

Without any contract, you have no authority access. If you breech the contract, you have no authorization to access. Access without authorization is a felony.

I tend to agree that the other courts were probably right. Whether or not the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is too broad is another matter and something for higher courts and the legislative branch to determine.

Which was made by Samsung. This will change with the Motorola acquisition...

Username changes would be very appreciated...