You claim that the way it's phrased makes your first possibility more likely, when in fact, the way it's phrased make the first possibility impossible, because e-Books are not printed books. I prefer not to pre-emptively assume an error has been made.

Further, given the rounding that can be assumed for both this kind of study and the way it's reported, 5.66% and 6% are effectively the same number, rendering the entire issue moot.

I don't know that Android would be a good OS for an e-Ink screen. Android's user experience is centered around the nature of the screen, and by switching to e-Ink, you give up multitouch, any kind of reasonable refresh rate, and color. You also necessarily lose the huge number of existing Android apps. Basically, you give up everything worth having about Android except Dalvik. At that point, why even call it Android?

Equating copyright infringement with theft is deceptive. Equating DRM with armed robbery is more deceptive.

You can only derive the $50 figure if the relationship between supply and demand is perfectly elastic. In the real world, this is almost never the case. And when you compare imprudent business decisions on the part of publishers to communism, you really go off the deep end.

The interesting question for me is: if an individual has no moral objection to pirating eBooks, why would they pay any nonzero price for them? I can't come up with any kind of ethical framework in which the initial offer of $8.99 on the part of the customer, given the eventual torrenting, is reasonable.

In what way is expressing an opinion on what someone should or should not do the same as deciding what someone should or should not do? You are free to do what you want. Other people are free to tell you that they don't approve. Your rights are not infringed when other people exercise theirs, and despite what you seem to believe, your rights do not include the right not to be disagreed with.

Glad to hear it. My girlfriend had literally the exact same experience with her Kindle, right down to the excellent response. I really feel like competition is doing a lot of good here. That and, probably, the companies involved are smart enough to know that people won't buy e-books if they're not happy with their readers.

Netflix really can fill that niche, though, via instant watch. I really believe (or at least, hope) that the library of movies, especially older movies, available for instant watch will grow to the point that it's competitive with the older titles available in any local store.

And there is no true Scotsman

By creating new definitions for the terms "liberal" and "conservative" to suit your whims, you've moved them far beyond the point of usefulness.

This is way, way off. We're not even in the same ballpark as the sun. In fact, our ballpark and the sun's ballpark aren't on the same planet.

So he should stop using his browser of choice because if he doesn't, he may someday have to stop using his browser of choice.

Most stolen iPhones are jailbroken. It makes getting them on to a new contract easier. And a way to lock down or locate stolen phones that can work despite jailbreaking would be a very nice thing to have.

If Apple actually tried to use a process like this for what the tinfoil hat brigade is imagining, I'm sure they'd lose the lawsuit.

Bullshit. Where is Nintendo lying about the capabilities of their hardware? Where are they selling something that doesn't do what it says on the box?

How is the fact that Nintendo isn't putting the emphasis on graphics performance to the exclusion of other factors somehow dishonest? And how is basing the decision to buy a videogame system on something other than graphics performance stupid? And finally, what is the great crime here for which "fault" needs to be assigned? Marketing a product that you don't want to buy? What a grievous sin that is.

Clever monsters have always been followed and adored. Foolish monsters are still often shunned and killed. The change you describe hasn't happened.