If that was a pun at my post then you should know that this site formatted it that way. It was full of paragraphs when I typed it out.

Yah, just like computers have been ruining writing these past couple of decades. Children can barely write cursive if at all. Then one could argue its usefulness. Schools originally taught it as a faster way to write. Also so that children could read useful material that is only written in cursive. Computers have eliminated the need for both of those arguments. It is much easier to type and cursive material has been rewritten in typed-text. Cursive is a depreciated skill. Just like novels inspire imagination and creativity, their usefulness is dimming. Facebook, twitter, yourtube, etc.. These are all just mediums of expression and creativity, which strive imagination. The only difference is that anyone can produce it for the world, not just established writers. No need to write a book to express yourself anymore, and it is far more interesting to see real experiences than it is to read a fake one that only exists on paper. What is wrong with that? Devices like the Kindle and iPad aren't ruining reading. They are eliminating the purpose of reading for recreation. People still read all the time. People still read news and educational material. People still develop their reading skills. New age devices aren't ruining the purpose of reading. We just don't need them to entertain us anymore. That is what these interactive reading devices do. Besides, as far as picture books, go, I don't know the last time I saw a 3 year old read a 400 page novel. Those picture books aren't designed for adults. They are designed for children who have not fully developed reading skills and imaginative thought processes yet.

I am not surprised either. In fact, it is preparing them for the world outside of high-school. I am an adult in my mid 20s and I spend practically the whole day in front of media. I spend about 8 hours at work on a computer, i listen to music in my car when I go to and from work, and in the evening I watch tv. I spend probably 11 or 12 hours in front of media as an adult. The weekends are the only times where I spend very little of my time on media. According to that study, kids who spend a lot of time on media are generally stressed and depressed. I wonder if that is an cause for the media time consumption and not an affect. At least they will know how to use those things. It is practically required in the working class these days.

The only thing worse than watching the special, is watching it on VHS.

1 cent a mile would cost me about $2.50 a week just to drive to work. That is $0.50 more than the 18cent tax. In 10 years though, that may not seem like much more. Parking is then $15 a week and at $2.60 a gallon, I would be spending $30 a week on gas. So, it would cost me $47 a week just to go to work and back. With a rising cost in parking and now more to just drive, all this means is that I will drive even less by moving closer to work or simply working from home (network infrastructure is set up for this, but it is not preferred.) Maybe I will take a bus (OMG!) I would like to know where on my motorcycle they are going to put the GPS. I already power my own and a few other trinkets, I hope they plan on supplying batteries lol.

"Critics, who are unaware that most college students don't become liberal arts majors, argue that paying kids corrupts the notion of learning for education's sake alone." I don't know anyone who learns for the sakes of education. I don't think the 40% of kids who did better would have done so just to learn either. Money is motivation. Learning just for the hell of it is not. I wish they did this when I was in school. I got really poor grades in classes that I did no care about. I would have done much better if they paid me to learn the things that I found (and still are) useless.

Have you tried Bing? The results are useful and not completely ad-ridden. They converted their Live search to Bing as well, and I have even seen TV ads too. So they are definitely getting the word out. At least it is a good search engine.

Don't get me wrong, google had thousands of results. However, they were short book manuscripts, book ads, or one-paragraph writings that were not too informative. My search terms were various forms of "German economy early 1900", and late 1800. Bing had some useless results too, but they were far (and I do mean far) more useful and relevance than google. It even linked to some very informative encyclopedias entries, and contained less results that are advertisements.

Over the weekend, I went to yahoo to search immigration information on pre-WWI Germany and the site kept timing out. Google was giving me nothing. I went to Bing and got a few good listings. Yahoo is just a poor search engine.

How about Ubisoft and RB6 Vegas? Remember that their fix around a big DRM issue was basically to install a no-cd crack by Reloaded? They just took the crack, renamed it, and then released as an official patch.

"But watch as the laptop that Dell used to show these features wasn't able to withstand the rough treatment that was part of the company's demonstration."

I watched, and the laptop survived just find. Stayed on and worked after all test. Am I a blind idiot and missing something, or is narramissic just retarded?