Publish your book

At high costs, you probably could always publish your own book. But it was probably never as easy as it is with Lulu.com. It's not only easy, it is also cheap. You can publish a 300 page paperback for about $10. To put this in perspective - this is cheaper than most paperbacks in Czech Republic.
I should get started on that story I'm thinking about for sometime...

Gadgets and pricing

Some gadgets are cooler than others. This one, Sony Reader is on the better side of the world. The most shocking thing about electronic book reader is the pricing of the books. You can buy a mass market paperback on amazon.com for 7.99, usually in 4-for-3 discount, so you can get to 6 dollars easily (yeah, that's a half of what you pay in Czech Republic).
Electronically, it costs about $5 or more. That's just crazy. Where is promotional pricing? Where are the printing, storing, selling costs? Why would I buy DRM-protected book for $5, if I get a physical, paper copy for $6?
It looks like another good idea (e-books) will be killed by MBA/big CEO style pricing. A song costs $1, a TV show costs two, and these have negligible printing (etc.) costs. So just sell the books for $1-2 and you will sell them much much more. Because even people who just plan to read the book will buy it.

Drive-in drop-off

In UCSD, the main library has drive-in boxes into which you can drop-off your books when you want to return them. I got use to the notion of drive-in ATM, but this really made me laugh. It is actually not a bad idea if you think about it, because there is not enough parking space on the campus, so if you drive to school just to return books, it certainly saves you 30 minutes of walking from a distant out-of-campus parking lot.