My own feelings about the technology are conflicted.  I've been reading Thorne Smith's "Topper" (which I somehow never got around to until now) as an ebook on my Hanlin, and am finding it fairly pleasant.  Stuffed into the device I have several other Project Gutenberg titles, including Trollope's Barsetshire novels (which I never had the patience for as a young pup, but think I may enjoy a lot more in middle age).  It really is rather impressive to be holding a shelfsworth of weighty literature casually in one hand.  The technology is exciting, undeniably so.  It seems to have such enormous promise.  I live nowadays where clearcuts -- and the damage from clearcutting -- are painfully visible.  Fewer dead trees is a concept I can definitely get behind.

The real issue, I suppose, is not so much the technology -- which aside from issues of toxicity, resource consumption, accessibility, is more or less value-neutral -- as intellectual property law.  The technology merely leads us back into the mess that is intelprop...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...