If you sit collecting proof for the industry, you will go bankrupt. Very few people I know give a damn about rewarding someone for their work. Windows 7 was retailing for $30 for students and many students preferred to pirate that too. Claiming that people take stuff like "the amount of DRM" and "how it affects usability" seriously is just bullshit. No one other than the average jobless nerd engages in that kind of analysis for something that solely provides entertainment. DRM is here to stay. Warez are more appealing to users because unlike cheap Chinese knockoffs of shiny iToys that won't work, pirated software gets you the real finished product for no cost. Is it so hard for you to understand that people don't see any reason to pay if it can be had for $0?

Agreed. Powerpoint brings its own problems to the table but it has permeated instruction so much that it is something we have to embrace. Using the overhead projectors (the ones that use clear plastic sheets) are the best way to teach.

I've seen profs use tablet PCs and every other dumb tool and the unanimous opinion of teachers and students alike is that overhead projectors and powerpoint are good enough for most teaching. Anything else accomplishes nothing extra but costs more $$.

Thanks a lot for this comment. I am a rising junior in CS and I will be applying to grad school next year. About talking to professors at your school, did you send out emails to them or did you meet them, say at a department social ? Which of these is preferred?

So you think it is going be a new heuristic for an NP Complete problem? Or a new computer for his texts that sufficiently takes into account I/O latencies and the like?

Creationists are on a mission to troll their kids.

My professor's argument was that the monopoly tries to break even on every R&D investment in the short term and often deliver a product to the market that is not really comparable to what is in the pipeline since they aim to recover every $$ they invested that quarter.

Your doctor could also target a particular trait and try to kill those people off who have said trait. (S)he also wouldn't need a database of any kind. Just FCFS.

In my Architecture class, our professor was always complaining about what a big kludge x86 was and how the "wintel" monopoly was holding the world back. Guess he was right.

Netbook = possibility of storing notes. Can lead to cheating.

Pop quizzes in class. Those can't be done with a laptop.

Also, an iPad can't take bribes, cannot lie / introduce inaccuracies in figures and can calculate faster than any politician. It also enjoys popularity. Total win-win here.

There's this thing called the Meno's Paradox . It interested Socrates. Maybe you and other awesome slashdotters who are wired to every journal and patent db on the planet would do well to learn about our problem - that we really can't inquire about something if we don't have a definite idea of what we are looking for.

Iran has its share of batshit-crazy. You only proved that politicians, rulers, leaders and the people who listen to them and support them have an IQ expressible in 2 digits.

This is probably the biggest curse one can heap upon afghanistan. Poor nations with tons of natural resources, can never make good use of these resources. I can see an Afghan situation now that promises more warfare, more involvement from nations in the Indian subcontinent (none of which will produce a positive result) and a population that will be plunged into even greater poverty than the current situation. Also, no one would probably want to be responsible for a mineral rich nation which has been the site of war for 30 years, whose ex-despotic leaders want power and will kill anyone in their way and whose population is now truly pissed with all the liberators and the oppressors fighting for control. I am not sure why Afghanistan deserves this.