[Anthem]

Uhh, ignoring some of the argumentative inanity above I will say this:

electragician, I have also run in to the badly formatted ePubs thing. The World Without Us (purchased on Borders.com) and Doubt: A History both have GIGANTIC margins. Initially, I am annoyed. After some reflection I'm just trying to not care. We will see. After also having ADE related difficulties with God's Problem by Bart Ehrman I was about one small skip and a mouse click away from thrusting my carcass in the direction of Amazon.com and simply purchasing the printed material.

Also, I read my first eBook on a Palm M105! It feels like such a long time ago.

(Upcoming Weasel Words) Many people (End Weasel Words), say that eBooks are still in their infancy. They are wrong. eBooks are decades old. They are just having a hard time reaching puberty. Call it stunted growth. It just seems like no one in the book world really cared all that much. When they found out profit can be had like so much pirate booty I imagine many a board room across the skin of our planet resembled:

CEO: "So, what's this errr, "E" book thing?
CIO: "Books in digital format."
CEO: "We could be the first?"
CIO: "Not really, they've been around since... well, since computers have been around really."
CEO: "Hmm. I notice we are making a little profit on these. Wait. Wait. Wait!"
CIO: "..."
CEO: "Holy crap! We're making profit on these? Like, honest to god money?! AND we can dictate quite literally how people breathe when they are anywhere near our licensed products? OH OH OH, we can license books?! We don't have to print out an entire volume and sell that to someone and turn a blind eye while they blink in any fashion they desire while looking at it and turning however many pages at a time they want including "flipping"? And that incidental look at our book by Grandma over the shoulder of junior: we might be able to punish that legally?
CIO: "Well, we should try to be fai..."
CEO: "Get me the latest issue of Good Housekeeping and point me to the nearest restroom!"

Or something like that.