Don't get me wrong. I sure do know how bad addiction can get. I also know, though, that it's not a problem in and of itself. Plenty of people are addicted to stuff all the time and feel it's for the best. If I ran the world, I would try harder to accommodate differences in people's psychological makeup rather than just medicating the crap out of them.

Well, I'm a project manager for the media section of a text-book publisher. It's the project management that I am bad at, so I'm going to find a job where project management isn't the primary job skill. I like computers and media and education, so I may stay in this industry, but move into a position that's more about problem-solving or working directly with content (more editor-y or programmer-y). Something that would let me work at my own pace more.

Sales is a great place for people with ADD as they are often personable and funny (perhaps I'm projecting ;) ). Attention and follow-through, and detail-oriented work are part of any job, but there are some that are "better" than others for people with ADD. Like, if you're good at sales or writing, or whatever, you can often hire an assistant to handle the attention-heavy stuff. ADD types often do well in creative fields, too, as the "creative" thought process seems to be similar to the ADD thought process. So much so, in fact, that a recent study has shown that ADD drugs can eliminate people's ability to have "AHA!" insights when trying to solve puzzles. This has been documented by researchers and I can personally report it's true for me.

Yeah, well, it's not that they need it to function DISCLAIMER (I am presently on a similar medication), it's that they need it to function in the highly structured, monotonous "farmer" style society that we find ourselves. If there was a way for many of these people (and many people with ADD do fine without meds) to make a living that didn't rely on organization, attention to detail, etc., then we wouldn't need the meds. I myself am trying to transition myself away from my concerta-requiring job and into a non-concerta-requiring job as we speak.

As far as addiction goes, what of it? People are addicted, physically addicted, to coffee, and other substances all the time. It's not the addiction but the psycho-physico-emotional harm that it might do that is the problem. No one worries that people with bipolar disorder are "addicted" to their meds.

The double-bind that publishers are in, however, is that the people who choose books for their classes (sometimes individual professors sometimes committees) will refuse to buy a book that is cheaply made because they fall apart and students can't re-sell them. Also, a lot of the cost comes from the fees we pay for rights to those glossy photos and not really the production cost of the physical book (which is why eBooks for these $150 texts are often still over $50 and why that Bangladeshi copy still cost $50).

I agree, though, that the situation we have in textbooks is sort of the same as the one in American automobiles: an oligopoly where a few competitors offer roughly the same product with roughly the same prices. Add in the fact that all the add-ons and online content is almost never revenue-bearing and the price of the textbook isn't going to drop very far. Change is coming, though. I can feel it in my bones! Flat World Knowledge, Inkling, and now Apple are going to get it right pretty soon and change the way the whole industry operates. I'm just glad I work in the media department and not print!

I work for a major textbook publisher that makes some of (albeit the cheapest) those textbooks.I admit that the system is broken, but the impression that the publishers are gouging the students is not entirely fair. The bookstores on campus with monopolies on their local markets and used book sales through nation-wide aggregators are a large part of the problem. All that is before we even get to piracy.

Also, textbooks these days come with a wide range of additional print and on-line resources like study guides, course management and homework systems, videos, etc. that are usually bundled with the book for "free." (I'm not going to insult you and suggest these add-ons don't effect the price of the book, but their value generally far outweighs the price)

If you want someone to blame, talk to the people who run your local bookstores.

This disappoints me greatly. Why didn't they just reconfigure the deflector dish when they realized there was a problem and reduce the mass of the rocket with a tachyon pulse?

Seriously, though, we need a better system. Modern rocketry is almost 100 years old and we haven't come up with anything better?

that I know of to run an organization with a purpose other than making money is to have it run, as much as possible, by non-professionals and user donations. Otherwise, the amount of bloat within the organization goes nuts and, of course, the money starts influencing the editorial process. Just look at the difference between traditional AA-like programs vs. the Catholic Church. How much of what a cardinal or whatever does is about helping people with their spiritual lives and how much is meta-crap about the organization itself? Whereas, in AA, all of that shit is kept to a bare minimum since there's very few people who are part of AA infrastructure professionally. And yet, there are millions of AA members in hundreds of countries.

By the time we have them, we won't really want them anymore. I live in New York City and, seeing the congestion on the roadways, would hate to have the air choked with cars as well. Especially given the likely size of the population by the time that flying cars would be practical.