Russians do not have/use letter H, they substitute G instead.
So Hotel can only be written in Azbuka as Gotel or alternatively 'otel (proper Russian name for Hotel is Gostinica)

For H in formulas or when spelling, for example H2O they use sound
"Ash" - an aproximation of English spelling for H.

Fanless computers for industrial automation, for example the ones made by Advantech can take LOTS of abuse. They work at coke battery plant, steel plant, sintering plant, ... places that can be at least as hostile as a desert.

A nice example is here:
http://www.advantech.com/eAutomation/fanless-box-pcs/Default.aspx

I have deployed Mint Linux several times as a replacement system for non-techie Windows users.

Mint Linux is built on Ubuntu, They have tweaked Ubuntu, added various "non-strictly-free" codecs, drivers and programs. The start menu us on the bottom left and former Windows users just love the 3D effects, desktop cube, wobbly windows ...

You can simply send email to yourself with the book in pdf.

Steve Jobs has demonstrated that at least THAT works.

There is an e-ink device called PocketBook.
http://www.pocketbookreader.com/PocketBook_360.html

There is version with 5" screen and version with 6" screen.

Just yesterday I have downloaded a Blockout game for my PocketBook.
Yes. THAT Blockout - a 3D version of Tetris.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=sk&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://bookfast.org/category/pocketbook/programs&twu=1

No. You can not disable it. You can not change the pictures of dead authors. There is hack that allows you to use your own photos.

Kindle is not the only device on the market.
On PocketBook e-ink reading device you can configure everything. Including "screensavers".
You can switch those off, you can replace the picture, you can have number of pictures and let the PocketBook to randomly display one of those. I have compiled a nice collection of images from M.C.Escher.

http://www.google.com/search?q=quote+steve+jobs+people+don't+read+Anymore&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t

http://www.volny.cz/basiclinux/

You are wrong.
I bet Canada is forcing Amazon to translate all the English books to French and display English text on one half of screen and French translation on the other half ;-)

Of course, French books sold in Quebec won't have to be translated into English.

You forgot to tag the article as "old news".

We have seen all those videos long time ago.

Nice pun!

10 PRINT "What is your name?"
20 INPUT A$
30 PRINT "Hello " A$

You see? You can use it to write programs.
Very dangerous! They can *not* let that happen.

No.
That is not true.
Mushrooms are made from horseshit ;-)

Just yesterday I have learned that Amazon DELETED some books by Ayn Rand that people purchased for their Kindle. No, I am not talking about deleting the allegedly copyright infringing books from Amazon server, I am talking about deleting said books from the Kindle devices of individual buyers. Amazon just connected (by means of whispernet) to individual kindle devices and deleted the books. Now we learn about advertisements automatically inserted into books. Way to go Amazon!

I am from generation that saw the introduction of a handheld calculator.

I finally got one in 7-th grade in grammar school. Many, many of my clasmates didn't have calculator at the time. From time to time people from the next class would come to our class and each of them was trying to borrow a calculator, because they has physics test that day and they wanted to save time by not having to do calculations by hand. I hated, just HATED to put my precious programmable calculator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektronika_MK-61 into the hands of some ignorant clumsy non-geek ;-))
At that time a good calculator was about as valuable in my country as a netbook is in USA today.

So, when one of them came to me to borrow my calculator it went like this:
"Hey, can you lend me a calculator"
"Of course, no problem at all"
"Let me just show you how it works. You plug in the power adaptor to the wall socket, switch the thing on like this ..."
"now let's compute 3*5. OK?"
"you type 3"
"now you move 3 to the next register by pressing this symbol - you see this gorgeous thing uses Reverse Polish Logic"
"now you type in 5"
"and finally you press * symbol to tell the calculator to compute ..."
"Hey ... do not run away ... I can show you how to cleverly use the next two registers for parenthesis ... "

Install some nasty looking geeky system on your notebook and every time one of your art oriented friends comes along just start explaining how this obscure distro works ...