The shift in CD prices started earlier than 1999. I only rarely paid $15-$20 for a CD at that point, most of them were in the $10-$12 range (purchased on "sales" and online). What Apple did was solidify that price point without having to scour around too much for a deal on an album.

Further, singles were almost always $3-$5 (usually closer to $5). I purchased one single in my life back in the 90s (it was a song not available on an album) but generally would purchase an entire album because I could get the album for $10 (this was when there were starting to be reasonable CD prices). Now singles are inexpensive but back in 90s or earlier, if a song was available as a single, it was still pricey.

I've never had the OS of any of my iOS devices crash (I've had apps crash on occasion but it's really quick to get them open and going again). My Android phone (a $300 Motorola model, new last July) has many app crashes, many more than I see on iOS. Further, I've had the OS crash 5 times in the 7 months I've owned the phone. It's more stable with a custom ROM than it was with stock but it's still far more unstable than anything I see in iOS.

Yes, most of the time they are app crashes and not OS crashes but the OS crashes occur too.

Motorola sued Apple about this issue (maybe not in Germany but certainly here in the U.S.) before Apple really started going after other companies. I'm not defending Apple, I'm just pointing out that this didn't happen to Apple because of them "flinging around lawsuits", Motorola went after Apple before that happened.

True, but why didn't he do this when he had almost a supermajority of Democrats in Congress (during the first 2 years of his time in office)? Getting things passed at that point should have been easy for him (like the massive environmental bill, the massive health insurance reform, and the various stimulus bills were easy). The problem is that Pres. Obama says he cares but he does not do anything about it, except for when he can self-handicap himself (like he can do now with Republicans in control of the House) and reduce his apparent culpability for inaction (i.e., it's the Republicans' fault). Pres. Obama had a wonderful chance to make so real changes to the tax code and other fiscal policy measures but he did not do anything. Conrgess didn't do anything. For better or worse, at least Pres. Bush and the Republicans made changes to the tax code (the changes were positive, the massive increase in spending including for 2 wars were not positive).

Many government meetings begin with prayer; this occurs less than it used to but prayers before government meetings have been the norm since the founding of the nation. Being able to have a prayer at a political rally or a governmental function is a right protected by the 1st Amendment. What is prohibited is declaring a state religion (e.g., the only recognized and sanctioned religion is the Catholic Church or the Methodists or the Baptists) and impeding the free exercise of other religions.

Our nation was founded as a true Judeo-Christian nation, which means that diverse religious or irreligious beliefs are accepted and respected. Our Constitution would not exist without the influence of Christianity (I'm not saying a particular church, I'm referring to the broader Christian belief system). It also wouldn't exist without the influence of some important philosophers. I'm merely saying that Christianity (but particularly the freedom of religion sought by many of the early immigrants to the New World) was a necessary but not sufficient condition for the Constitution.

They are targeting high school and middle school first then will likely move on to college level. It's still a good start for bringing the price of textbooks down.

I agree completely. If I had the money for one, I'd buy a Volt in a heartbeat.

The past is already censored. We don't study the past so we already don't learn from it. A few people study history but many of our history sources are biased already. The only way to get the least unbiased sources are to go to the primary sources, which few people do (or have the ability to do). Even then, what we have about the past is limited and biased towards/by the literate.

Do what I plan on doing. Put a book together for class and offer it as free. Then, provide all the materials (text, images, videos, etc.) to students without an iOS device; the formatting doesn't have to be as nice.

I agree completely. I am in a field where these sorts of textbooks would be tremendously helpful. In fact, it would be fairly straightforward to put together my own textbook with my own images and movies and diagrams and offer it as a free download to my students. Then, as needed, I could update the book with the latest info. I would offer the material to students without iPads/iPhones/iPod Touches for free, it just wouldn't be quite as pretty. I was planning on my students never having to purchase a textbook again but now this will make it much easier to do that (unfortunately, they'd have to read my own book but at least it would be free, probably about what it would be worth).

We know from brain studies that our brains seem to peak in our mid 20s (although I've seen that number range to 40). Whether or not this translates into cognitive changes is debatable but I'd expect us to start having declines (usually speed of processing - how quickly we can handle information) around that time. However, other research (I can't find the citation right now) shows that for many of our other cognitive domains (other than processing speed) - memory, language, etc. - we see increases until the ages 40-65 (depending on cognitive domain) - and then declines after that. What this means though is that by the time we are old (in our 70s), unless we've developed dementia or some cerebrovascular disease, our abilities are generally as good as they were when we were teenagers or in our early 20s. Basically, our abilities increase and then decrease so we end up not much worse off when we were young (and sometimes still better).

Yes, some areas of cognition do start declining earlier than 45 (probably in our mid 20s) but testing changes are not always significant in the real world. Our tests (neuropsychological/cognitive) do not have as much external (ecological) validity as we would like. So what if we decline? What does that mean for real-world performance? Not always as much as we might think. We are usually good at compensating for deficiencies.

To answer your question though, having 45+ in a longitudinal study is inadequate but better than what we've had in the past (at least with huge samples). These are a good set of data. I'm sure there are some methodological flaws in the study in how they handled repeat testing (my Master's thesis was about how to handle longitudinal cognitive data; i.e., how can we accurately analyze it, accounting for unexplained variance?) but the linear mixed models they used are pretty good statistics (I just don't think that the methods account adequately for regression to the mean and unpredictable test characteristics).

As someone who administers cognitive tests for both research and clinical work, I can state that the Mini-Mental is not a very useful test (we sometimes use it clinically {because medical doctors want it} and for research {because some reviewers think that it's necessary information, which is ridiculous given the amount of other cognitive data we collect}). It's a screener that is easy to administer but it is neither sensitive nor specific. The test, frankly, doesn't tell us very much. There are other alternative and better screeners out there, the MMSE is just the most widely used. The sooner that it stops being used, the better; then we can start giving more useful tests. I'm not saying the MMSE is useless, it's just no big loss if there is copyright being claimed now. We'll move on to something else.

"If your ATM card has the backing of Visa or Mastercard and used as a Credit Card, then you are in the worst case scenario out $50."

That's because of the protections offered by Visa and Mastercard (to the bank or card issuer, which can then pass them on to you), not usually the bank (although some credit unions offer those protections).

The trick is to find the credit card companies who have the best customer service. I have one issuer with awesome customer service. They offer all sorts of protections on travel, car rentals, lost/stolen cards, etc. without obligating me to pay anything in the case of loss or fraud. Additionally, there are some credit card issuers (e.g., American Express) that offer additional warranties on products you purchase with the card. So, for example, if I purchase a laptop with a one year warranty, some credit cards (even ones with no yearly fees) will extend that warranty to two years (you just work through the card issuer and not the company). But again, the trick is to find the issuers with good customer service who don't make things too difficult for you (they exist, a few of my cards are though companies with good customer service.

Because the merchant already raised prices, it behooves me to use a credit card. If I don't, I'm subsidizing those who do use cards; if I do, then I'm receiving the reward. Now, if everyone stopped using credit cards, merchants could lower prices. That would be great but it probably won't happen (and I won't be leading the charge [pun intended] in that battle).

Credit cards can be bad - I've worked with people who have had terrible self control issues with credit cards. It's almost tragic. However, it's not entirely the credit card's fault; people with spending problems have other issues that are the real problems.