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Tuition at Harvard is $30,000+ . Per year. Are students attending this place really that concerned about saving $30-40 bucks on a textbook? Having said that, textbooks in general are way overpriced and having a website that does price comparisons is great. There's another one called campusi that is really excellent. But textbooks are a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of tuition nowadays. Even in Canada, tuition is spiraling out of control. It's ridiculous. Students shouldn't be forced to take out loans to get an education.

Java Concurrency in Practice
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321349601/
http://www.campusi.com/isbn_0321349601.htm/

Btw, the real cover has shiny white bullet trains on it -- much sweeter than the one currently shown (even though I do love bees).

I cringe whenever I see ads for technology to take your workplace anywhere. With _______ you can be at your desk wherever you go!

That just means you're always at work. I'm sure executives want to be able to reach employees at all times, but there's some value in being unreachable when you're not on the clock. Yes, for certain applications it's important for certain mission critical people to be always there, but I don't think most business is like that.

1) Buy books at campus bookstore.
2) Get pissed about how much money I just wasted on books.
3) Go online and find the same book for much cheaper. http://www.campusi.com/ is a GREAT site to get books for cheap.
4) Once the books I ordered come, I return the originals to the campus bookstore. (Ours has like a 30 day return policy.)

This way I make sure I have the book the first day of class. I know its the correct book / edition / etc and I don't waste a ton of money buying them. I highly suggest this to everyone.

Sometimes I have to put up with the "international" edition. This is the same book page for page but usually has a soft cover and cheaper printing style. I really don't care when I paid $30 for the book and everyone else in the class paid $120. (Thats one expensive cover!)

The common sentiment seems to be that the video game industry churns out nothing original, and has not for years. The article certainly reflects that. I suppose it isn't difficult to feel that way when you see so many licensed games and sequels on the market. Regardless, I have to voice my dissent.

If you look deeper at the underground independent games you will see a totally different situation. Just check out the one source for independents that sometimes gets kinda-sorta media attention, the Independent Games Festival. Look at last years winners such as Gish and Wik and the Fable of Souls. Intensly original and very fun. How about Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, a charming little game designed to be replayable, with each game finishing in about 5 minutes.

Go to The-Underdogs and just browse around their top-rated titles. There are tons of freebies that are top-notch, very fun, and quite original.

I feel that this situation can be compared to looking out your in your backyard vs traveling to the rainforest. If you sit at home and look in your yard you see tons of squirrels, moles, etc. You get jaded and start to say that there are no unique animals. Occasionally perhaps a deer, and you get worked up over something that isn't really that spectacular. But if you go out and really explore the more wild area you will find tons of great stuff. It is not brought to your doorstep, and it is quickly being eroded away, but it is out there. Just go look for it.

Actually while I do feel that the independent underground is the best source for creative original titles, there are tons of published games that 'fit the bill'. People loooooove to spoute Katamari left and right, and it is an original game, but how about.. Mizuguchi's line of original games (Lumines, Meteos, Rez). How about Wario Ware? How about Dance Dance Revolution? Even the Battlefield series added major innovations into the FPS genre (the huge scale of combat and variety of vehicles) and Guild Wars is an MMORPG that pretty much seems to go contrary to every other MMORPG on the market.

Finally, the 80's were not the golden age of game innovation that people give them credit for. Currently I am intently reading through a great book The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon. Long story short (I realize my post has already crossed from '?interesting? comment' into 'psychotic rant') the 80's original and innovative games were simply original and innovative because there were so few games created yet! Once any succsessful game formula was established, there were an incredible amount of clones. The fact that is true now, is true then. Popular games are copied, repeated, and sell like hotcakes. Pac-Man, for instance, was beat in coin-op sales only by Ms. Pac-Man! There is constantly an influx of new game ideas, the 80's arn't so special.

/prepares to be modded into oblivion by the legion of /.ers weaned in the arcades.

For anyone interested in this sort of thing, I recommend Hyperspace by Michio Kaku

One of the discussions in the book touches on objective "levels" of civilization and species.

IIRC, it can be broken down something like this:

Level 0: What humans are now.
Level 1: Mastery of the entire energy capacity of a single planet
Level 2: Mastery of the entire energy capacity of a single solar system
Level 3: etc...

He supposed that Level 2 and beyond was the point at which a civilization was effectively permanent, able to survive anything less than the total heat death of the universe.

Neat stuff.