I dunno. I'm sticking to my guns on this. Kindles are already ridiculously expensive. Tack on the fact that those $100 textbooks aren't now completely free. How much do you think a digital license of a textbook costs compared to the "retail" shelf price of it? $50? $75? More? So the savings per textbook goes down to... $25-50?

Add that on top of a Kindle, plus all of the intangibles behind an electronic device with a learning curve (tech support, training, etc.)?

Keep in mind too that the proposal is only for, I think, two subjects - not all. But the investment in the device stays the same. the more categories of class and grades you can put on it, the more you save.

Training and tech support? Seriously, it's a fucking e-book reader, it's not a computer. It's easier to use than a cell phone, and how many kids know how to use cell phones now? My six-year-old can use a cell without any coaching.

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Hypothetically, if they were to get Kindles for every student who takes English, don't you think they'd get some sort of bulk government discount, rather than having to buy each of them directly from Amazon for $300?

This is the government, jackhole. The CA government no less. You really think they're going to mail these to every grade school student and fucking hope for the best?

Probably, but then, what's your response to those who've stated here that the costs of textbooks won't decline significantly and that you'll still be paying the publishers quite a bit of money?

My response is to punch them in the liver.

We are forgetting one very very very important issue with this, if Books go digital, book burnings will not be as much fun.

_________________
Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

You could just have "Will it Blend" gatherings instead. Speaking of which, did they ever do that on the Kindle.. must be too big to fit in the blender.

It doesn't HAVE to be on a Kindle, but you do have to look at the economics and marketing of it if Kindle were to get behind this. Like a drug dealer give it away to the kids to get them hooked and you have a customer for as long as they are around.

There will be a lot of costs. I am surprised that in California that no one is touting the environmental impact (think of the trees saved!!!!)

BTW - a friend of mine purchased a Kindle and they are a lot cooler than all the stuff that we have read about them. If you are a big reader they are sweet.

I'm actually on Fribur's side on this one. I think the costs in the long term will be higher than people are anticipating.

I'm basing this mostly on my own childhood. I *know* exactly what would have happened to one of these devices over the years of my education. From the "let's take it apart to see how it works" phase, to the "misplaces everything" phase, to the "I wonder if I can hack this to do X" phase...the device would have had to have been replaced/repaired many, many times in the course of 12 years.

So unless it is the parents that are eating that cost, I don't really see how this will save them money in the long term, if the costs of digital texts are roughly the same (which I don't know).

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Why wouldn't the parents eat the cost? If you lost a book in school, your parents ate the cost. If you lost a flute in school, your parents ate the cost. If you didn't return a library book, you didn't graduate. This is the year 2009. It's about time we start acting like it.

Lots of parents can probably squeak out $50-75 for a lost textbook.

Not a lot of parents can squeak out $400 for a Kindle or other e-reader.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Then they could offer some sort of insurance. There are plenty of ways to make this work. The fact that kids are irresponsible shouldn't be in the equation.

We're also assuming that this program would require e-readers to leave the classroom. It might be well past time that we need to look at how we assign homework.

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Or that just assigning homework does not a teacher make.

(Or, we could just cut music and sports and other extracurricular stuff!)

What are the benefits to eliminating homework?

What are the benefits of assigning homework? ;p

And no one said eliminate homework, just how we assign it and what we expect from it.

When I went to school, homework was a... significant part of your final grade. which makes no sense, since there's never proof that YOU did it.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Ok I'm sort of with you.. so what is the proposal?

Why the fixation on Kindle? There are already e reader models out there 100 bucks cheaper and the price will drop, especially for a company looking for the free advertising a government deal will give them.

All in all, I think a trial run would be awesome. Give the parents/students the option to go digital, and those who still live in caves can still use books and for the rest we'll see how it works. A lot of textbooks already come with online material to get the most out of them.

Oh, they're not going to be black and white forever. Color is already in the works for newer models.

So the advantages are weight, "easier to update" and "maybe cheaper."

Weight is true. If all books are on a Kindle or Kindle like device, then this is certainly true. The pictures given by whoever up above are misleading, though. Most students in high school do not have that many texts, and rarely if ever need to bring them all home at once. With the current popularity of block schedules across the country, students only have 4-5 classes at a time, and not all of them have textbooks or require a student to take them home at once. In elementary school and middle school textbooks need to be taken home even less. Let's not pretend that a kid has to bring home 19 books every day (the number of books in that picture), especially not the college texts in that picture.

Easier to update? Not really. It's easy to update only if software exists to automatically update without the 2nd grader having to do anything, with it being able to connect wirelessly to the Internet and do the updating without any interaction with the user, and with either every single school or every single home having access to wireless Internet. This is expensive to setup and maintain. Believe it or not, most elementary and middle schools still do not have a wireless Internet system setup, and I already described at length the lack of Internet access at home. Without Internet access, each of thousands of Ebooks (whatever kind you buy) at each school will have to be individually hooked up to a computer with Internet access every time you want to do an update.

Less expensive? This just isn't true. Textbook costs are currently tied up primarily in the cost to create them, not in the cost to print them. Prices for textbooks won't (and haven't) change substantively with the switch. In addition, you are adding the cost of the ebook itself. You are also adding a higher replacement cost when they break or get lost-- and the WILL break, at a higher rate than a book. Again, I have personal experience on this one. And finally, you are adding tech support costs which you are welcome to laugh at, but it will exist, and it will be significant. These are kids. They will take it outside. They will drop it in puddles. Older kids with nothing else to do will look for ways to hack into it.

So all we're left with is the weight issue, which doesn't seem to be enough of an advantage to me to warrant the difficulties in updating and the additional cost outlined above.

Oh, and no homework is better for kids? Heh, we would never, ever get to the musical proficiency we do in my classes without regular homework. Classtime is simply not enough time to get done what needs to get done. I can't speak for other classes, but no homework would significantly hurt my program. Someone said, "you can't guarantee the work is theirs with homework," and that's true I suppose, but that doesn't mean it isn't beneficial for the majority of students who actually do their homework. In some subjects, it's becoming much more difficult to cheat-- I'm thinking about English and Turnitin.com. Go check it otu-- it's done wonders for cheating in our English classes, and rare is the student willing to actually write a paper for another student.

Extra practice is a good thing in any subject-- it seems to me that the benefits of homework are obvious. If your argument is that we give too much homework, and that kids don't have time to do anything else, then you need to take a look at how we're falling behind other industrialized countries in many areas, and then go look at how much those countries are sending their kids to school and doing homework. To put it simply, our kids have it easy, and we're paying for it.

Bringing all this back to the textbooks, if you are a proponent of no homework, are you then suggesting that there should be no tests, or that students simply should not study for tests? If they should study for tests, and their texts are digital and not allowed to leave the classroom, are you suggesting we hire a babysitter for the digital texts and have the classroom open all night every night until a student is done with them, and that parents should be forced to find a way to get their kids their in the evenings whenever there is a test?

The problem isn't so big that it needs a huge investment of millions of dollars to fix, folks. The savings don't exist, and the increase in functionality while neat isn't substansive. I'm open to the idea because I like the general idea of personal tri-corders, but so far it doesn't seem practical.

Why not just have something like a multi-slot docking station in the classroom?

C'mon sir, you're just bashing it, not thinking of solutions! Help out here!

Oh, now I see where maybe you misunderstand me. I would honestly really like to see something like this someday! I love the idea of a text book that is durable enough for kids to handle that gets instantly updated on a regular basis through the Internet, that has all their texts in one item. You could do even more that hasn't been mentioned yet-- you could have assignments that require students to highlight what they think are the most important parts of their reading for that day and results could be sent directly over the internet to gradebooks. You could have assignments right on it of any kind in the same way if you imagine it with touchbad technology. I think there's a coolness factor here and a usefulness factor here that could someday be awesome.

But proposing it as a way to save money? No. In fact, your proposed solution right there Bovinity is another large additional cost. Are we talking about one of these multi-docks for every classroom? Do teachers need to collect them all and bring them to a central room somewhere to do this? How often? And finally, since as far as I know such a device has not yet been created, there is the cost of research and development, and software, and tech support... blah blah blah.

Damn it, I hit post early again.



Homework is a funny thing. It's like an opt-in practice session...by that I mean, kids that are already dedicated and doing well will do their homework and kids that don't care or aren't good at it will often just get "help" from the smarter kids or just not do it at all. It's very ineffective to give a kid a homework assignment when they don't understand the material and have no one at home to really help them through it...almost like relying on the kids to self-teach.

Or kids like me will simply not do it at all and bank on just ace'ing all the tests. =)

Many of my classes where I learned the most were those in which the teacher actually assigned very little homework but rather spent their class time in very interactive lecture formats.



When I was in high school I carried a goddamned duffle bag. Not a backpack, a big fucking duffle bag full of books. Granted, I could have used a locker and went back and forth between classes but when you have a 4-floor high school with classes scattered all about, that becomes as much of a pain in the ass as just carrying the damn bag around. ><

Of course, part of that is the teachers fault. Every teacher acted like THEIR class was the only class kids had, and often required you to have dedicated notebooks and extra materials just for their class in addition to the books. Silly.



The only reason this might be true for now is that no one is trying! By definition electronic resources should be cheaper and easier to maintain than paper ones.

Given how extremely cheap most educational institutions can get software and such for (I worked IT for an "educational" facility and we got Windows/Office/etc at something like $30/copy at most.) I see no reason why book publishers couldn't cut production costs and offer public schools vastly discounted licenses for electronic versions of textbooks.

And you're still hung up on this weird idea that we have to buy every kid a $500 Kindle 2 or something and let them do what they please with it. Like I said above, have a lower cost reader or other device with a docking station of some sort in the classroom. Kids leave the device in the classroom and if the teacher wants to assign homework they just print out worksheets. (They already do this anyway!)

I could see some teachers really making heavy use of a device that could sync up with some sort of computer/projector system so that they could save recordings of lectures to the devices for students to view/review at any time. Or even let teachers enter their own notes/material/etc into the devices (Which would then be easily propagated to all the devices via the docking station.) for students to view and read.

Man, that would have been awesome in some classes....having access to the teachers outline/lecture to review and replay as many times as I needed while I was learning it.

Or heck, even a device that lets the teacher "poll" the classroom on a question and *everyone* can silently enter their answer rather than the teacher only really being able to ask one at a time. Then the teacher gets a rough idea of just how many kids the information is reaching and also sort of forces the children to be paying attention. (Also lets kids who aren't really getting it to let the teacher know in a fashion without risking embarrassment by being the only one to raise their hand, hehe.)

Granted, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but the possibilities are just endless here if we got over the financial hurdles, got over clinging to the current system as if it's sacred, and really looked at what advantages current technology could offer to our students if we gave it a shot.

I'd love to see some big technology company (Microsoft, etc) try this from scratch. Next time a district is looking at building a school they offer to help build it from the ground up as a fully integrated technological experiment.

I'm NOT clinging to to the old as though it is sacred though. All those things sound awesome. But they are large new costs, and pretending this is a way for California to somehow save money is ridiculous.



Interesting, schools in my area generally pay Microsoft a flat fee to use their products throughout the school instead of buying individual copies. That flat fee is a subscription, and it includes tech support. I don't know the exact cost but I know for our small rural school with 2000 or so computers it's in the thousands per year.

Yeah, I can still view the site where we got materials, and - for example - it's $20/copy for MS Office 2007 Professional. Sometimes you get multiple licenses for a single "purchase".

It's all made possible for educational and non-profit organization by donations from companies like Microsoft/Adobe/Symantec/etc.

Oo, there's wireless networking hardware on the site now too. Nifty.

If I were an unscrupulous individual I'd be tempted to buy a bunch of equipment for $50 and run with it.

Sounds like Fribur is only interested in the worst case scenario(s).

I don't know why people would need internet at home to use the digital books, so why is this such a big point people are trying to make? The books wouldn't need to be updated every day/week/month/or even year, necessarily. Textbooks don't go through this many changes, after all. And if they did need to be updated, why wouldn't that happen at school?

And this plan wouldn't be simply removing all books from all schools. It would be a gradual process. But it DOES have to happen at some point. I don't see how anyone can argue against that transition. So if you agree that moving away from textbooks and moving towards the digital age does need to happen, then why not embrace it and think of the potential for greatness it has, rather than "trust me, kids will drop it in water dur dur"? So silly.

Maybe we should just focus our energies on the REAL future of schools, Neesha. A future envisioned by the prophet Fribur.

....WATERPROOF BOOKS!!!!!!

Even assuming all that is true, and that the school has 1. no wireless internet and 2. that the school needs to individually hook up each e-reader to update it, that's STILL easier than printing new text books entirely from scratch.

If we move to electronic textbooks, then we can change the way we make deals with text providers. Have the text providers update it every year or every semester as part of their contract. This doesn't really mean much for most science or math texts, but history, economics, social studies, etc. can all benefit from being up-to-date. One of the things I remember about those books in high school were that they were often out-of-date with their info, especially about major world events.

Think about the impact of 9-11, or of the fall of the Berlin Wall, or any number of events that occurred that changed the world. How many years were kids taught from texts that didn't cover those events because they were too recent? These are events that actually have an immediate impact on their lives, but they aren't covered. With a new electronic system in place, those updates can be in a timely manner.

Now, I don't know what school you teach at, but the ones I attended the teachers didn't coordinate who was giving textbook homework on what nights. I walked to and from school, and if I had 3 or 4 of my teachers all give homework on the same night, that was a ton of weight I was carrying home. I realize the stack of texts above isn't indicative of a typical student's workload, it was just to show that books are HEAVY, and that even a couple of them can fuck up a kid's back.

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I don't know why, but I'm going to keep trying.





Worst case? Worst case would be far worse than anything I've said so far. I'm talking about reality, as someone who sits in a classroom and deals with expensive items being given to to students every single year. I know the reality of how often things break, and how often things have to be fixed and paid for when students break them.

Every year in my classroom 50 - 60 students begin instruments in 6th grade. Musical instruments are generally easy to take care of, for adults. We don't break them, because we treat them as the expensive items they are. Students, on the other hand, are stupid about these kinds of things. 60 instruments go out, 20 are repaired by the end of the first year. These are damn expensive items, with expensive repair bills. You guys keep acting like students will take a Kindle and treat it well... like a kindle. They are not heavy duty items. They will break, and they cost more to replace than books. In addition, books break much less easily. Make fun of me all you like, but that's simply because you have no experience actually working with kids with expensive items, and you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.



I said you would have to have internet at home, OR at school. See the "or?" If you are going to tout an advantage of digital books as "easily updatable," then when someone talks about the one easy way to update shit available you can't pretend you don't understand why it's being brought up. Ideally an automatic update system done wirelessly over the internet would be awesome for frequent updates. Unfortunately many schools and homes don't have such items yet, and one or the other would have to get it-- at once again additional cost. How, again, will this save money?

Hooking every reader to a computer to do a manual update is not easier at all, when you are talking about thousands of them, and each grade needing different ones. Receiving a new textbook in the mail is far easier.



I don't embrace it because California is in massive red ink, and this will INCREASE costs, not decrease them. It's a big money proposition, and it isn't going to save them anything. I believe this is now the 5th time I've said something like this.



How so, from the school's point of view? I can order a set of books and have it arrive with a simple phone call, for less money than I can buy the Ereaders, THEN buy the textbooks (for the same price), then pay someone to sit for a few days and update them all.

Cheaper and easier to buy the books.



I would LOVE this, and I hope someday we have something like this. I can't imagine such added functionality would be cheaper than a book though-- it would be more, as it offers a much bigger advantage.

It's a side topic, but science books would greatly benefit from this too-- science also changes quite rapidly, and science books are often out of date within a year or two.



I'm sorry, but I laughed out loud in my living room when I read this one. Do you honestly believe that these events weren't covered in class when they happened? Do you think that over the last year the election between Obama and Bush wasn't talked about in classes all over the country, despite the fact that it wasn't in their textbooks? Do you really believe teachers don't watch the news of any kind, and only teach what their textbook tells them too? Only if the teacher is terrible, and that teacher deserves to be fired. This is not an argument for or against a digital text at all.



I don't know what to say about this one. Since you are talking about multiple teachers, I have to assume you are talking about high school. What can I say to that? Maybe you need to toughen up a little? They are in high school-- were you a pussy in high school?

In elementary school they generally have one teacher for all their classes, and much less homework anyway, so it's not a problem there. In the middle school where I work they work together to plan out homework so things aren't due at the same time and kids can space it out *if they plan ahead.* If they procrastinate? Well then a heavy backpack is part of the consequence I suppose. Welcome to real life!

Oooh I just realized that I have 12 year old 6th graders carry a Tenor Sax or a Baritone home most days-- that's 35ish pounds in addition to their backpacks. Maybe we should stop using instruments and switch to kazoos. No wait, the kids don't complain at all and can handle it. Hrmmmmm....

I'm sorry for being an ass in the last few paragraphs, but damn lol... we're not talking about heavy labor here to take a few books home.

Fuck weight. It's a stupid point to argue for this. It's a convenience , nothing more. It isn't life changing. If your kids are at a health risk for carrying around school books, then you should be giving the pudgy fucks an apple instead of candy bar. Stop being fucking pussies.

The updating part is simple. The kids wouldn't even have to do this. Don't know why that part is even argued either.

Fribs, are you sure you're up on technology nowadays? It's like you think we all have to pedal our own electricity on a bicycle generator to run everything, the way you're making everything sound SO HARD.

Bovinity is the librarian who secretly HATES BOOKS omg. Taking down the system from the inside.

Are you a book? If so, then YES I DO HATE THEM!

It's also funny because even my podunk crappy library is moving heavily into digital media and internet resources for a LOT of things, even entertainment oriented things.

Why? It's cheaper, even when the redneck idiot patrons go sitting on the CD's or stepping on the DAD's (Digital audio devices) and such.

You're doing a great job for the cause, one sarcastic nonsensical one-liner at a time. Keep up the good fight!

Fuck you, you book in disguise.

I'M ON TO YOU

This is me. sup?

The library isn't the same as a school. Thanks for your thoughtful response though.

You also don't have to give them a kindle. Kids are currently using delicate shit right now. Nintendo DS can't survive many scenarios you're talking about, and with the investment in games that kids make...drop kicking your shit into a puddle would make you very sad faced. Kids today understand the need to treat certain things with better care than we did by throwing book bags at each other.

Additionally we're talking about current e-readers marketed specifically to and for adults (or older kids at the very least). Why not look at educational things marketed specifically for children? Leapfrog anyone?

And as much as we all can giggle at Joxur's hate for the kindle...he's not WRONG on the pricing. E-books tend to be less expensive, but they're also not printing them. I would guess more money is made on e-books, because people will buy a new release for $10...and it's not even a hardback! There's little savings on older titles unless they're MUCH older. Otherwise it tends to be pretty close to paperback pricing.

Textbooks HAVE a guaranteed market. Look if you're, say, Stephen King...you have a guaranteed market. You know you're gonna sell AT LEAST X number of books. You expand into the e-market it's just more money for you...there's no need to beg there. But if you're an accomplished author but more of a niche guy...like Harry Turtledove, your prices are still going to be high, but maybe you give away a book for free to hook people in. Or have a sale. You're more inclined to make deals. And if you're King and you know your fans would LOVE to OWN your old books and will...if you make them say $5 for Cujo, then again it's well worth it.

But where's the publisher's incentive? Okay let's pretend that there's enough competition there that there's some incentive...but not much. I mean, printing the books is good for them. Every time a kid destroys one, they sell a NEW ONE. Now, they don't get ANY of that money. The district doesn't need to buy 'spare' copies.

All the 'loss' money goes to whomever makes the technology.

What about new editions? Are they going to be expected to update the texts for free?! Or are they going to be able to sell multiple updates? Right now books aren't 'updated' perhaps as often as they should be, due to the costs of doing so. With an e-book that's much easier but what's the incentive?

There's a formula that will work, there has to be. Frankly, I think the wisest thing they could do is come up with a subscription package. Each student pays $X annually and we provide the books. If they're smart, they'll also provide the readers and be a one stop shop in order to get that money too.

Oh, and as far as homework goes if books were kept at school, and you couldn't 'count' on internet access? Have each child be responsible for picking up a worksheet. If they have internet they can use the internet. If they don't, they can use the worksheet. With the savings in paper elsewhere if you can load shit onto the ebooks/computers at school they'll still save money.

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So if it isn't saving money at all and might cost more, why is the Governator saying it'll save 300-400 million with hundreds of millions more if it succeeds?

Because he doesn't have a full implementation plan, and it's probably based on a whole lot of 'ifs'.

I could come up with a plan that would save us money on the board. IF we gave everyone a super duper cool gaming system, and IF we gave them a full suite of games to go with it, they would be loyal readers, and they'd have the tools to buy more things down the road! Then we could set up specific ads which would cater to that and would generate quite a bit of money. My plan costs ...a metric fuckton...in dollar bills please. But the SAVINGS, oh lord the SAVINGS down the road make it so sweet!

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But... But... it's TECHNOLOGY!!!111

So do we have any details on Arnold's plan? And does it at all resemble Fribur's nightmarish future where kids without internet flunk all their classes and the schools lose millions because they game each student a $4000 Alienware laptop?

*gave each student

Oops.

Fribur is against technology and FOR cancer. Go to hell, Fribur!

You're so cute! Keep it up!

Why are you for cancer?

Now come on, Frib, be honest. That's basically what you've been arguing. Sure, I blew it up a bit, but by and large your argument has been very narrow-minded and hinged around kids not having internet access at home and thus failing and giving kids some horribly expensive electronic devices that they will then break.

We don't even know what the full plan is over there in Cali. Surely they're not intentionally trying to lose money or hurt kids, so they must have SOME sort of idea as to what they're trying to do.

Tyral: Thanks for posting a pic of my cuz's Chemistry book.

Nope. Not really even close.

And I'm arguing based on actual experience in implementing technology in classrooms. What is your argument based on?

Um...go look at your own posts?



Your arguments have mostly betrayed a closed-minded or ignorant view of said technology, honestly. Just because you're a teacher does not mean you are on the inside track in terms of budgeting, implementation, purchasing, development, etc etc of technology in education, sorry.

By your own words, you have some microphones in a (music?) class. That's a far cry from what anyone here is talking about, and your own comments about the "difficulties" in any new technology, again, betray a lack of understanding of what's possible. (Like the Apple IIe comments and the commenting on having to plug each individual item into a computer one at a time to update them.)

And like I've said, how about we wait to see what the real details of the plan in California are?

Yes, yes it does. Because I AM on the inside track. As a Band Director and a member of the Technology committee at my school district, I help with the budget and decision making for hundreds of thousands of dollars of technology each year. I know what I'm talking about, at least more than a librarian. I'm HERE. I'm helping students every day with this stuff. I know the propensity of students to break things, and I know more about the hidden costs of training and tech support.



I've done far far more than a simple microphone. It was simply an example that fit the situation. I don't feel the need to bring up everything I've done, or technologies we've considered and tossed for now because of lack of development.

Everything I brought up is a real point that makes real sense in an educational setting. If all you can do is attack me personally because you don't like the arguments, then perhaps you should stop posting until you can do differently. Or, go ahead and continue treating me like shit if it makes you feel better. I can take it!

I don't understand how that comment makes sense in the context of the rest of your post. If you're going to quote all your "credentials" and such, why not give the details that are most germane to the discussion?

What are the hidden costs in training 17-year-olds how to use an eBook? 10 mins out of their day on the first day of school in first period?

Until you claimed that I knew nothing about the topic, it wasn't necessary.

I'm not interested in discussing myself, anyway. I've given you my arguments. Your response has been so far, "yur dum." When you explain the flaws in my arguments, I shall respond.

But you did discuss yourself. You keep talking about how you're a teacher and then went on to talk about some committee you're on and whatnot, but then you still decline to say what all those technologies and such you've worked on are under the guise of, "Not wanting to discuss myself."

That doesn't make a lot of sense.

And I'm sorry if you take it as "calling you dumb" when people calling your arguments out as closed-minded and short-sighted.

Because, you know the "yur dum" response is so much worse than the "you're a pussy" response.

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The problem wouldn't be the students I don't think.

My husband has had classes on how to use a Blackberry when his work upgraded. Then after these classes, which I think were like all friggen day, comes home and constantly asks me 'How do I do this...?' 'Honey, how do I do that?'

I didn't even OWN a blackberry at that point.

He's 11 years older than I am, it's the techno-curve, seriously. Now there's people MY age overwhelmed by new technology, and people younger than me too, but people like us...much less so because we use so much technology in gaming and because we're up on the latest shit we can incorporate it into our work needs as well.

Versus people who can't even program their goddamned pagers. /sigh

You know what else is fucked? Everyone at work thinks he's a techno-god. Why? Because he calls me, gets an answer and then feeds it to the masses. So basically I guess *I* am god, and he is my prophet?

Scary, scary thoughts. Oh the temptation to abuse powers and wipe memories. MWHAHAHA DANCE MY PUPPETS DANCE!

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lol... I forgot I said that. Got me there