The fact that Amazon has regulatory attorneys drafting proposed legislation that would protect their interests is hardly noteworthy. Any US Citizen or corporation is free to do the same. Industry groups and individuals often come together to either propose model legislation or comment on proposed regulations. This link explains the formal regulatory agency process: https://www.justia.com/adminis... So if you are pro or con for Amazon's efforts, how about being part of the process and engaging with the government to share your views?

For capturing the information during class, go with a fountain pen and paper. Particularly for multi-hour classes, a good fountain pen (~$30) can ease hand strain and fatigue. Focus on concise notes and diagrams that summarize the information. Often hand-outs will contain the information you need to memorize. Then, get a good scanner and document management platform. I used Devon Think (http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/devonthink/devonthink-pro-office.html) for organization of case files in law school. After scanning and OCR conversion, I let it create logical links between files. In this way, I did not have to worry about creating meta-tags or manual linking. Yes, I did go back in and create links later, but most of the time the automated routines worked. Yes, it will take time to learn in the beginning. Budget about eight hours to start over the course of a few days. The rewards are there if you are willing to invest in the program.

Preparing for the Bar Exam, you insensitive clod!

"The company says autistics have a talent for spotting imperfections, and thrive on predictable, monotonous work."

Sounds like manager material to me.

And this is why in australia all of our ADSL/Cable plans have "shaping" you get your allotment (usually in peak/offpeak GB per month) and once you go over it they "shape" your previously 24mbit** connection to 64 or 128kbit/s.
This means your monthly bill is a flat cost but if you accidentally stream too many movies off xbox live or something you will be back in dialup land till the end of your billing cycle or decide to upgrade to a more generous plan.

Our ISPs got slapped about 7 years ago for selling "unlimited" plans that had hidden smallprint limits in the acceptable useage policy (some of them defining abuse by being in the 98th percentile) as it was found to be illegal by the consumer watchdog.

** 24mbit is actually an average of 15mbit due to the nature of ADSL2+

No I am not. You have assumed there is a false dichotomy because you imagine repository resources to be infinite.

The argument is that people want 3rd party software, ergo if the repository does not have it then people will go somewhere else for it.

The response to this point is that repositories strive to have as much 3rd party software as possible on them. This would be fine and dandy if there is no raised entry bar, because there could theoretically be enough resources to host every 3rd party program that exists (for instance, Google could.)

But you have imagined a world where there is also enough human resources in order to maintain that raised entry bar (humans looking over source code, accepting and rejecting programs based on what they are programmed to do) while also overcoming the need to download 3rd party programs from someplace else

If Linux had 95% market share, no software repository on the planet could keep up with the *submissions* to it while also maintaining that raised bar of yours, because they simply cannot allocate enough humans to the task.

Just "leak" Windows XP into space and hopefully they'll have a malware-compatible infrastructure in no time!

No but how about a balance between the two. Repos for what most people want. PGP signed debs for the 3rd parties. Straight deb for all those feeling frisky. It's not hard to warn people that, "Hey you're installing a unsigned package, chances are this will ruin your computer, sure you want to do that?" If a third party wants to distribute packages the least they can do is self-sign (bottom end), get a real cert (higher end).

The inherent problem with the iPhone is that you can only go to one store to buy apps (namely iTunes). With Repos you can pick and choose which stores you trust and which you don't. Much like how I choose if I want to buy software from BigBoxMart or BestStolen. The Internet in general could (since I am using a store analogy apparently) be seen as buying stuff off the street. Yeah, the stuff looks cool and at these bargain prices you can't beat. But I do need to exercise some caution when I flash my wallet to some guy hanging out the back of a van.

So yes, I agree, I'm not too hip on the one store to rule them all policy. But I do believe that the store concept actually has some utility to offer if given the ability to go to another store should I so choose later. I obviously don't want to exclude the random vendor on the street that is selling hand made crafts, or even the random kisok by the bus stop selling phones. I do however what to keep in mind the burly looking thug over there selling "Snoby" Radios. I think it is all a matter of getting people to get inside a way of thinking.

To me, and that only applies to me, Mac OSX screams "Hey buy more shiny Apple stuff" (Security by insulating ones self by coolness). Linux says to me "Hey subscribe to a Repo because we are always changing stuff and you want to have the latest build." (Security by trust of subscription [or maybe sheer geekness]). Windows just looks like, "Hey we're cool with everyone, you want herpes? No problem we're cool with that. Want to do really neat spreadsheets? We're cool with that too." (Insecurity by being a software whore. We're just trying to please everyone.)

For now.