Yes, I read the article. And the thing of it is, why would any bookstore in their right mind pay 30 grand for one of these?
Let's say a soft-cover book costs $5.95. Round to $6 for convienence. Now, at that price, a bookstore could buy 5,000 books. But wait, bookstores don't buy them at that price, otherwise they wouldn't make any money. Let's say, for sake of arguement, that the bookstore gets them for $1.50. Now they can buy 20,000 books.
That is enough to keep your average Waldenbooks or B. Dalton's stocked for some time. And that doesn't even take into account the costs of paper, ink, toner, glue, spare parts, and repairs. And you haven't eliminated storage because you need to stick the supplies somewhere.
Now, do you think any chain store is going to plop down all the cash for all that, plus take the time to train people on this machine? (Yes, I know what the article said, but it almost never works out to be that easy.) Plus, you probably have some fun little insurance add-ons based on the machine, OSHA requirements, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Is it revolutionary? Sort of. The Xerox Docutech 6115 can do most of this already. (It can't cut pages.) Yes, it's all in one machine. Yes, it's probably cheaper then buying the equivalent set-up in several machines. But it is a revolutionary idea that will tilt the publishing industry head over heels? No.
You want cheaper paperbacks? Go to a used bookstore.
Okay, so you're so gullible to believe a politican, and so sheltered to be actually shocked by it? Come on, pols lie for a living. If they told the truth they wouldn't get elected. On the other hand, they have to keep their lies to a "believeable" level or they won't get elected either. Would you vote for someone who promised to get so much pork barrel money sent to his district that your dog would have a government job?
So, no it's not surprising that GWB is a lying sack of dung. But he doesn't deserve some of the stuff that he's being hit with. If Clinton had truly supported the whole drinking water thing, he would have signed it during his first term, when it came up the first time in his stay in office. And if the European leaders were so concerned about the Kyoto agreement, then they would have signed it and really made GWB look bad. But, golly gee... they didn't sign it either.
Why? Hrm... could it be because it lets China and India majorly off the hook for policing their own environmental problems? It may not be in the same league, exactly, as the USA, but it's getting there, and Kyoto would have done next to nothing to stop them. It is a flawed agreement.
Oh yeah, and the heads of all those Euro-countries that are nagging President Bush about not signing the Kyoto agreement? The sum total of those countries who have signed is the square root of fsck all.
This is the same agreement that practically lets India and China off the hook, and they have a metric arseload of the world's population and a goodly chunk of pollution as well.
Okay, compared to some parts of the States, they're pikers, but really, the Kyoto Agreement was flawed to begin with. No, it doesn't make Bush much less of the corporate stooge he appears to be (or the puppet of Cheney, some would say), but Christ, at least get some facts straight.
Exactly. What, it was something like 30 or 35 years ago that a lot of scientists were dead afraid of global cooling, to the point that a new ice age was "probable". Guess what, the same reasons they used to justify that answer are being used to justify global warming.
It already exists. It's called Limewire. Text files are only one thing you can choose to download. I've seen entire Star Trek novels up there. The big problem with it is that you're using someone else's formatting, which generally is really shoddy work, and you don't get anything like footnotes (a must in any Pratchett book), any real formatting, etc. Basic.txt files. But if you can't find it anywhere else.... (or you don't care what it looks like.)
Um, because of portability? I can open.pdfs with no problem on Macs, PCs, and Linux boxes. And I can print them on any of the linked copiers/printers in the store. That, and more people can understand and use Acrobat and get what they want rather then accidentally sending the.ps file text straight to the printer and get 17 pages of crap.
And why bother "exporting" from MS Word? At Kinko's (plug, plug), I can send it directly to a File Prep tool, which turns it into a.kdf, and then convert the.kdf into a.pdf which looks exactly the same.
Or, funnily enough, I could just print the damn Word file straight out without going through all those steps... (why the hell would anyone export an MS Word file to anything if it will print out just fine from there? 'splain that to me...)
Okay, I didn't get that from it. From what I know about the machines I work with, it's practically impossible to have a machine the size that this one is described at be able to hardcover 'pages' through the machine, at least along the same path the paper takes. I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely. It would require a straight path from where the cover material is stored, to where it will be finally placed for the binding.
Furthermore, the thicker a material is, the more force is needed to cut it. And, it's much more likely for the blade to 'jump' when it goes from cutting thicker covers to thinner paper. Whereas with cardstock or gloss card covers, it is so little of a difference as to hardly be a difference at all.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible. If this machine can print hardcover and softcover books, more power to them. But from the article, I tend to think it's just softcover.
Well, if a 'bookstore' relies on this machine to print out all the titles it carries, I'd hate to be them every time a new Harry Potter books comes out. If they follow the "print-on-demand" idea, you can't print extras and hope you'll sell them or it defeats the idea in the first place (and in all these concepts, you're eliminating any storage areas). So if they get swamped, they're screwed.
Second, most copy machines, even the color ones, cannot generally produce the same quality you see on standard soft-cover books. And if you don't think that the covers help sell books, you are so wrong that it's not even funny.
Third, these machines cannot do true hard-covers. Sure you can run cardstock paper through them, but that's only 200 grams/square meter, and for those people who like hard-cover books, there is no substitute.
Yes, it's neat. It's got that 'whiz-bang' shiny "new tech" feel to it. Is it revolutionary? Hardly. Is it going to majorly upset the publishing industry as we know it? Not a chance in Hell(tm).
Kierthos
Re:They already HAVE it at the local Kinko's!
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$0.03 a page? Umm, something on the order of 10,000+ pages... I think. Maybe more. That's a big point... small book runs at Kinko's are not "cost effective" in terms of standard soft-cover book prices.
But compared to laying out 30 grand for a machine like this, plus toner, ink, parts, and repair costs, it is probably less worth it to buy one of these machines.
Kierthos
Re:Great news for artists...
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Yeah, that would be nice, but why do you need to spend 30 grand to do that? Take that 30 grand, stick it in a bank, let it earn interest and go to a copy shop like Kinko's (or if you're desperate, Staples) and do it there. A Xerox Docutech 6115 workstation can scan paper, or use computer files. You can set the size, color, and type of paper you want to use, tell it how you want it printed, and if you don't want it tape bound (the only type of binding the 6115 can do), they have other types available at the store (coil, comb, velo).
If it's a file that can be coverted to a.pdf, you're set, and you've 'saved' 30 grand.
If they don't have the license or authority to print the books, then it won't. If I have one of these machines, I can't print copies of Stephen King's "Dreamcatchers" unless I have permission from the holder of the copyright. Since they are unlikely to give it to me....
Now, I tend to think that one other reason why this won't eliminate bookstores is the simple fact that even though you can print out public domain books (like, say Dumas' "Three Musketeers") on it, you tend to get a better quality (and probably physically smaller) copy at a bookstore. Also, hard-cover. I don't think this machine can do those. And I really doubt that it can do stamped covers, print on the binding, etc.
Kierthos
Re:This machine already exists...
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Cut? No. At least not with the 6115. For that, you want something like the machine cutter we have, which can be set to pretty much any cutting length with an accuracy of 0.01 inches.
The 6115 can bind, but tape bind only, and occassionally the stupid thing will be off on one copy in a long run so you end up with an inch of sticky metallic tape hanging off the edge of the book. If you're really lucky, it won't jam up anything else. Luckily you can really easily re-send the.pdf and run it again as needed, assuming that you didn't do something dense like delete it once it was sent to the machine (which happens all the bloody time).
Depends. If it can photocopy directly from a paper original, it can print in whatever font the original is in. (Note, a lot of machines no longer have direct photocopying, like the aforementioned Xerox Docutech 6115.) If it can only read.pdf files, it will be in whatever font the converted to.pdf was in. But since you can really easily convert most any file type to a.pdf, it's no biggie. So yes, it should be able to handle any font (that the computer recognizes, otherwise it does nasty things like change it to Courier), layout, etc.
Is it worth spending 30 grand on? Okay, I'm biased, I work at a Kinko's, so I know the pricing there... it really depends on how much you do. If you own/lease this thing, you save money by not paying Kinko's/Staples/Copy Max/whoever to do it for you, but you do have to pay for your own paper, ink, toner, replacement parts and repairs (depending on your license).
There's also training time involved in learning how to use these things. A lot of machines are not intuitive to use. If, however, this is intended for a wider market, it just might have a useful manual (unlike a few machines I could mention), and be fairly easy to use.
Personally, I'd let Kinko's handle it if I had to do any large scale printing even if I had one of these. But if I had 30 grand to throw around, I'd probably get a better computer before getting this... priorities and all.
Hey, it all depends on what you want to use. Most college and high school textbooks are printed on double glossy paper, which is usually pretty acid-free, so it doesn't degrade as fast. Or, much cheaper is the stock "white" paper, for stuff that you need now, but don't care if it looks slightly brown from aging in a couple of years. (It's also fairly acid-free, but it's also a lot less expensive...)
Most soft-cover fiction books also use a lower quality of paper then the hard-cover equivalents, simply because the soft-covers are much more mass produced. And also, most of those books don't have color pages unless they are hard-cover, so again, there is a major price differential.
Yes, it does come down to getting what you paid for. Most people who would use this for "home publishing" rigs would probably buy the cheaper paper, just because it is cheaper, and it still looks reasonably good for a couple of years.
Damn, and to think I do it all the time at work. Yeah, all it takes is a stack scanner, some Xerox software, and clicking on that 'Begin' button. I can even walk away, get a Coke and wait for it to finish. Then I come back, clean up the document if it needs it, send it to Acrobat, and from there I can either use some more Xerox software to set things like tabs, covers, or funky pages up, or just send it straight to the machine to get printed automatically.
It's pretty easy, actually. But hey, why let hyperbole get in the way of facts?
Yeah, but at $30,000 it's going to be beyond the price-range of most Indy writers and zine publishers. So, if Staples gets one, you get to go there and use it, which is great, unless you're like every zine writer I know, who wait until 3 in the morning to publish, which leaves Kinko's as the only local option.
And considering that there are machines that already do practically everything that this one does... yeah, maybe not all in one, but you can take the output from one machine, get it stapled, folded, bound, trimmed, whatever at any other... it takes a little longer, sure... but having worked with several of these machines, I don't know if I want something that can do all of this in one case. It's that much more that can break down, and given what I know, it will break down. Check the warranty and repair license before you buy or lease. (Although, Xerox was giving a year of free service calls with their larger machines a while back... not sure if they are still doing that.)
You can pretty much do this already. If you have the text of the book as practically any kind of file, it can be easily converted to a.pdf and run practically however you need it on a Xerox Docutech 6115. It cannot do the stitch binding of hardcover books, but so what? Most copy centers (oh, and btw, Staples reeks as a copy center) can't do them either. If you want hardcover stitching, go to a book-binder.
Okay, I wasn't the only one who noticed the lack of pricing... good. For a minute I thought I might have just missed it somewhere obvious (although I am not discounting that I still missed it...).
I find the lack of pricing disturbing. They have all this 'whiz-bang' stuff on their page, various methods of contacting them, but no prices. Hrm... developmental problems? Someone forgot to update the web page? Who knows....
Now, if I see one (or something similar) at Best Buy, I might try it out, but as it stands, there is no way I'm ordering this... it's not even worth contacting them if they can't list the prices for these things.
It really depends on what you're into. I personally like building little Lego gadgets and robots, so I like the Mindstorms sets (well, except for Extreme Creatures, but I believe I've already made that point) over the crap they're marketing as Erector sets these days. However, I've also played with tetrehedral models, and chemistry molecular kits (the smaller versions of which decorate high school chem labs showing the highly technical water molecule), which can be a lot of help when diagramming molecules. However, unless you are that kind of geek, you lose interest in them once you're out of the chemisty field.
I disagree, at least in part. Sure, a lot of the Lego kits have those special large pieces that are practically useless with other Lego projects (the Droid Development Kit comes to mind), but a lot of them aren't. Most of the pieces in the main set of Lego Mindstorms are the small ulitarian pieces, same with most of the parts in Robosports. Extreme Creatures, IMAO, is a waste of cash because it doesn't follow that, but on the other hand, Vision Command is excellent for what it is supposed to do.
Although I heartily reccommend that anyone who wants to build things in Mindstorms should go out and buy a half-dozen or so basic Lego sets just to get more pieces. They don't provide nearly enough of the pieces you'll need for some things. And I'm still looking for some more (and larger) tank tread-style pieces.
Hrm... wierd... when I was growing up, I played with my dad's old Erector Set, which had gears, an electric engine, pulleys, all kinds of fun things. When the engine finally gave out, I went and bought one of the new boxes of Erector set parts. No engine, no pulleys, no real fun at all. Flashy diagrams of models that look vaguely like the things they're supposed to be (none of the plane models were even vaguely aerodynamic, more like boxes with wings), and no real fun at all.
Fast forward several years to Lego Technics and Mindstorms. These are much more fun then any of the Erector sets I played with when I was a child except for my dad's old set. The programming for the Mindstorms is kludgy and annoying, but the possible things you can build are much more open, especially with some of the parts available. (I heartily reccommend not getting Extreme Creatures though... waste of cash.)
What makes all above-named activities perfectly alright is having a good head on you and being able to make your own decisions about what is right or wrong. Why would you let a bunch of people you've never met make up your mind about right and wrong?
Congratulations. You've just described any process which makes laws that does not ask every last person affected by those laws. Your statement indicates that any laws made by local, state or federal government is "wrong" because they didn't ask you.
Get this. Napster did facillitate unauthorized duplication of material. Millions of people used it. Is it wrong? Technically and legally, yes. Did that really stop anyone? Probably not.
Marijuana is illegal. Millions of people use it. Is it wrong? Legally, yes. Is that going to stop anyone? Only the people who get arrested.
The point is, just because something is wrong does not stop people from doing it, and just because lots of people do it does not make it ethically correct. The reason most companies don't "prosecute" employees who web-surf at work is because it generally isn't worth it. The reason the record companies haven't gone after every last person who downloaded a song from Napster is because it generally isn't worth it. The costs involved far outweigh any possible benefit.
Having "a good head on" does not make things correct or right or legal. It probably minimizes your chances of being caught, but it doesn't make lighting up a fattie any less illegal.
Gee, that's funny, because I can turn on the radio in my brother's car without having the engine running, therefore it consumes no gasoline.
What it does do is slowly drain the battery, because the engine is not running, powering the alternator and keeping the battery at charge.
Regardless, the man is probably screwed. I know for certain that if I (or anyone else) had used the USC (South Carolina, not Southern California, more's the shame) computers for a stunt like this, I would be lucky if I walked away with expulsion. Considering that the admins gave MUD'ers a hard time even when no one else wanted to use the computers, they're an uptight bunch (understandably though).
Although, I must say, they have no problems with SETI@home, or other shared processing programs that do not award prizes.
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Yes, I read the article. And the thing of it is, why would any bookstore in their right mind pay 30 grand for one of these?
Let's say a soft-cover book costs $5.95. Round to $6 for convienence. Now, at that price, a bookstore could buy 5,000 books. But wait, bookstores don't buy them at that price, otherwise they wouldn't make any money. Let's say, for sake of arguement, that the bookstore gets them for $1.50. Now they can buy 20,000 books.
That is enough to keep your average Waldenbooks or B. Dalton's stocked for some time. And that doesn't even take into account the costs of paper, ink, toner, glue, spare parts, and repairs. And you haven't eliminated storage because you need to stick the supplies somewhere.
Now, do you think any chain store is going to plop down all the cash for all that, plus take the time to train people on this machine? (Yes, I know what the article said, but it almost never works out to be that easy.) Plus, you probably have some fun little insurance add-ons based on the machine, OSHA requirements, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Is it revolutionary? Sort of. The Xerox Docutech 6115 can do most of this already. (It can't cut pages.) Yes, it's all in one machine. Yes, it's probably cheaper then buying the equivalent set-up in several machines. But it is a revolutionary idea that will tilt the publishing industry head over heels? No.
You want cheaper paperbacks? Go to a used bookstore.
Kierthos
Damn straight. Besides which, bookmarks can remember IPs, and search engines can be modified (if they have to be) to use IPs instead of a DNS.
What's the biggie?
Oh yeah, it would neuter ICANN....
Kierthos
(no! it's not an anagram!)
Okay, so you're so gullible to believe a politican, and so sheltered to be actually shocked by it? Come on, pols lie for a living. If they told the truth they wouldn't get elected. On the other hand, they have to keep their lies to a "believeable" level or they won't get elected either. Would you vote for someone who promised to get so much pork barrel money sent to his district that your dog would have a government job?
So, no it's not surprising that GWB is a lying sack of dung. But he doesn't deserve some of the stuff that he's being hit with. If Clinton had truly supported the whole drinking water thing, he would have signed it during his first term, when it came up the first time in his stay in office. And if the European leaders were so concerned about the Kyoto agreement, then they would have signed it and really made GWB look bad. But, golly gee... they didn't sign it either.
Why? Hrm... could it be because it lets China and India majorly off the hook for policing their own environmental problems? It may not be in the same league, exactly, as the USA, but it's getting there, and Kyoto would have done next to nothing to stop them. It is a flawed agreement.
Kierthos
(No, I didn't vote for Bush.)
Hollywood recognized it years ago. Remember "Waterworld"? (If you don't, I won't blame you...)
Oooo, and there was that great Rutger Hauer movie set in a flooded London with a genetic monster... (what was the name of that flick?)
Yup, ol' Hollywierd has used that a lot... Been concerned? Not till lately... guess it's the new fad... it won't last long.
Kierthos
Oh yeah, and the heads of all those Euro-countries that are nagging President Bush about not signing the Kyoto agreement? The sum total of those countries who have signed is the square root of fsck all.
This is the same agreement that practically lets India and China off the hook, and they have a metric arseload of the world's population and a goodly chunk of pollution as well.
Okay, compared to some parts of the States, they're pikers, but really, the Kyoto Agreement was flawed to begin with. No, it doesn't make Bush much less of the corporate stooge he appears to be (or the puppet of Cheney, some would say), but Christ, at least get some facts straight.
Kierthos
Exactly. What, it was something like 30 or 35 years ago that a lot of scientists were dead afraid of global cooling, to the point that a new ice age was "probable". Guess what, the same reasons they used to justify that answer are being used to justify global warming.
Kierthos
It already exists. It's called Limewire. Text files are only one thing you can choose to download. I've seen entire Star Trek novels up there. The big problem with it is that you're using someone else's formatting, which generally is really shoddy work, and you don't get anything like footnotes (a must in any Pratchett book), any real formatting, etc. Basic .txt files. But if you can't find it anywhere else.... (or you don't care what it looks like.)
Kierthos
Um, because of portability? I can open .pdfs with no problem on Macs, PCs, and Linux boxes. And I can print them on any of the linked copiers/printers in the store. That, and more people can understand and use Acrobat and get what they want rather then accidentally sending the .ps file text straight to the printer and get 17 pages of crap.
.kdf, and then convert the .kdf into a .pdf which looks exactly the same.
And why bother "exporting" from MS Word? At Kinko's (plug, plug), I can send it directly to a File Prep tool, which turns it into a
Or, funnily enough, I could just print the damn Word file straight out without going through all those steps... (why the hell would anyone export an MS Word file to anything if it will print out just fine from there? 'splain that to me...)
Kierthos
Okay, I didn't get that from it. From what I know about the machines I work with, it's practically impossible to have a machine the size that this one is described at be able to hardcover 'pages' through the machine, at least along the same path the paper takes. I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely. It would require a straight path from where the cover material is stored, to where it will be finally placed for the binding.
Furthermore, the thicker a material is, the more force is needed to cut it. And, it's much more likely for the blade to 'jump' when it goes from cutting thicker covers to thinner paper. Whereas with cardstock or gloss card covers, it is so little of a difference as to hardly be a difference at all.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible. If this machine can print hardcover and softcover books, more power to them. But from the article, I tend to think it's just softcover.
Kierthos
Well, if a 'bookstore' relies on this machine to print out all the titles it carries, I'd hate to be them every time a new Harry Potter books comes out. If they follow the "print-on-demand" idea, you can't print extras and hope you'll sell them or it defeats the idea in the first place (and in all these concepts, you're eliminating any storage areas). So if they get swamped, they're screwed.
Second, most copy machines, even the color ones, cannot generally produce the same quality you see on standard soft-cover books. And if you don't think that the covers help sell books, you are so wrong that it's not even funny.
Third, these machines cannot do true hard-covers. Sure you can run cardstock paper through them, but that's only 200 grams/square meter, and for those people who like hard-cover books, there is no substitute.
Yes, it's neat. It's got that 'whiz-bang' shiny "new tech" feel to it. Is it revolutionary? Hardly. Is it going to majorly upset the publishing industry as we know it? Not a chance in Hell(tm).
Kierthos
$0.03 a page? Umm, something on the order of 10,000+ pages... I think. Maybe more. That's a big point... small book runs at Kinko's are not "cost effective" in terms of standard soft-cover book prices.
But compared to laying out 30 grand for a machine like this, plus toner, ink, parts, and repair costs, it is probably less worth it to buy one of these machines.
Kierthos
Yeah, that would be nice, but why do you need to spend 30 grand to do that? Take that 30 grand, stick it in a bank, let it earn interest and go to a copy shop like Kinko's (or if you're desperate, Staples) and do it there. A Xerox Docutech 6115 workstation can scan paper, or use computer files. You can set the size, color, and type of paper you want to use, tell it how you want it printed, and if you don't want it tape bound (the only type of binding the 6115 can do), they have other types available at the store (coil, comb, velo).
.pdf, you're set, and you've 'saved' 30 grand.
If it's a file that can be coverted to a
Kierthos
If they don't have the license or authority to print the books, then it won't. If I have one of these machines, I can't print copies of Stephen King's "Dreamcatchers" unless I have permission from the holder of the copyright. Since they are unlikely to give it to me....
Now, I tend to think that one other reason why this won't eliminate bookstores is the simple fact that even though you can print out public domain books (like, say Dumas' "Three Musketeers") on it, you tend to get a better quality (and probably physically smaller) copy at a bookstore. Also, hard-cover. I don't think this machine can do those. And I really doubt that it can do stamped covers, print on the binding, etc.
Kierthos
Cut? No. At least not with the 6115. For that, you want something like the machine cutter we have, which can be set to pretty much any cutting length with an accuracy of 0.01 inches.
.pdf and run it again as needed, assuming that you didn't do something dense like delete it once it was sent to the machine (which happens all the bloody time).
The 6115 can bind, but tape bind only, and occassionally the stupid thing will be off on one copy in a long run so you end up with an inch of sticky metallic tape hanging off the edge of the book. If you're really lucky, it won't jam up anything else. Luckily you can really easily re-send the
Kierthos
Depends. If it can photocopy directly from a paper original, it can print in whatever font the original is in. (Note, a lot of machines no longer have direct photocopying, like the aforementioned Xerox Docutech 6115.) If it can only read .pdf files, it will be in whatever font the converted to .pdf was in. But since you can really easily convert most any file type to a .pdf, it's no biggie. So yes, it should be able to handle any font (that the computer recognizes, otherwise it does nasty things like change it to Courier), layout, etc.
Is it worth spending 30 grand on? Okay, I'm biased, I work at a Kinko's, so I know the pricing there... it really depends on how much you do. If you own/lease this thing, you save money by not paying Kinko's/Staples/Copy Max/whoever to do it for you, but you do have to pay for your own paper, ink, toner, replacement parts and repairs (depending on your license).
There's also training time involved in learning how to use these things. A lot of machines are not intuitive to use. If, however, this is intended for a wider market, it just might have a useful manual (unlike a few machines I could mention), and be fairly easy to use.
Personally, I'd let Kinko's handle it if I had to do any large scale printing even if I had one of these. But if I had 30 grand to throw around, I'd probably get a better computer before getting this... priorities and all.
Kierthos
Hey, it all depends on what you want to use. Most college and high school textbooks are printed on double glossy paper, which is usually pretty acid-free, so it doesn't degrade as fast. Or, much cheaper is the stock "white" paper, for stuff that you need now, but don't care if it looks slightly brown from aging in a couple of years. (It's also fairly acid-free, but it's also a lot less expensive...)
Most soft-cover fiction books also use a lower quality of paper then the hard-cover equivalents, simply because the soft-covers are much more mass produced. And also, most of those books don't have color pages unless they are hard-cover, so again, there is a major price differential.
Yes, it does come down to getting what you paid for. Most people who would use this for "home publishing" rigs would probably buy the cheaper paper, just because it is cheaper, and it still looks reasonably good for a couple of years.
Kierthos
Damn, and to think I do it all the time at work. Yeah, all it takes is a stack scanner, some Xerox software, and clicking on that 'Begin' button. I can even walk away, get a Coke and wait for it to finish. Then I come back, clean up the document if it needs it, send it to Acrobat, and from there I can either use some more Xerox software to set things like tabs, covers, or funky pages up, or just send it straight to the machine to get printed automatically.
It's pretty easy, actually. But hey, why let hyperbole get in the way of facts?
Kierthos
Yeah, but at $30,000 it's going to be beyond the price-range of most Indy writers and zine publishers. So, if Staples gets one, you get to go there and use it, which is great, unless you're like every zine writer I know, who wait until 3 in the morning to publish, which leaves Kinko's as the only local option.
And considering that there are machines that already do practically everything that this one does... yeah, maybe not all in one, but you can take the output from one machine, get it stapled, folded, bound, trimmed, whatever at any other... it takes a little longer, sure... but having worked with several of these machines, I don't know if I want something that can do all of this in one case. It's that much more that can break down, and given what I know, it will break down. Check the warranty and repair license before you buy or lease. (Although, Xerox was giving a year of free service calls with their larger machines a while back... not sure if they are still doing that.)
Kierthos
You can pretty much do this already. If you have the text of the book as practically any kind of file, it can be easily converted to a .pdf and run practically however you need it on a Xerox Docutech 6115. It cannot do the stitch binding of hardcover books, but so what? Most copy centers (oh, and btw, Staples reeks as a copy center) can't do them either. If you want hardcover stitching, go to a book-binder.
Kierthos
Okay, I wasn't the only one who noticed the lack of pricing... good. For a minute I thought I might have just missed it somewhere obvious (although I am not discounting that I still missed it...).
I find the lack of pricing disturbing. They have all this 'whiz-bang' stuff on their page, various methods of contacting them, but no prices. Hrm... developmental problems? Someone forgot to update the web page? Who knows....
Now, if I see one (or something similar) at Best Buy, I might try it out, but as it stands, there is no way I'm ordering this... it's not even worth contacting them if they can't list the prices for these things.
Kierthos
It really depends on what you're into. I personally like building little Lego gadgets and robots, so I like the Mindstorms sets (well, except for Extreme Creatures, but I believe I've already made that point) over the crap they're marketing as Erector sets these days. However, I've also played with tetrehedral models, and chemistry molecular kits (the smaller versions of which decorate high school chem labs showing the highly technical water molecule), which can be a lot of help when diagramming molecules. However, unless you are that kind of geek, you lose interest in them once you're out of the chemisty field.
Kierthos
I disagree, at least in part. Sure, a lot of the Lego kits have those special large pieces that are practically useless with other Lego projects (the Droid Development Kit comes to mind), but a lot of them aren't. Most of the pieces in the main set of Lego Mindstorms are the small ulitarian pieces, same with most of the parts in Robosports. Extreme Creatures, IMAO, is a waste of cash because it doesn't follow that, but on the other hand, Vision Command is excellent for what it is supposed to do.
Although I heartily reccommend that anyone who wants to build things in Mindstorms should go out and buy a half-dozen or so basic Lego sets just to get more pieces. They don't provide nearly enough of the pieces you'll need for some things. And I'm still looking for some more (and larger) tank tread-style pieces.
Kierthos
Hrm... wierd... when I was growing up, I played with my dad's old Erector Set, which had gears, an electric engine, pulleys, all kinds of fun things. When the engine finally gave out, I went and bought one of the new boxes of Erector set parts. No engine, no pulleys, no real fun at all. Flashy diagrams of models that look vaguely like the things they're supposed to be (none of the plane models were even vaguely aerodynamic, more like boxes with wings), and no real fun at all.
Fast forward several years to Lego Technics and Mindstorms. These are much more fun then any of the Erector sets I played with when I was a child except for my dad's old set. The programming for the Mindstorms is kludgy and annoying, but the possible things you can build are much more open, especially with some of the parts available. (I heartily reccommend not getting Extreme Creatures though... waste of cash.)
Kierthos
What makes all above-named activities perfectly alright is having a good head on you and being able to make your own decisions about what is right or wrong. Why would you let a bunch of people you've never met make up your mind about right and wrong?
Congratulations. You've just described any process which makes laws that does not ask every last person affected by those laws. Your statement indicates that any laws made by local, state or federal government is "wrong" because they didn't ask you.
Get this. Napster did facillitate unauthorized duplication of material. Millions of people used it. Is it wrong? Technically and legally, yes. Did that really stop anyone? Probably not.
Marijuana is illegal. Millions of people use it. Is it wrong? Legally, yes. Is that going to stop anyone? Only the people who get arrested.
The point is, just because something is wrong does not stop people from doing it, and just because lots of people do it does not make it ethically correct. The reason most companies don't "prosecute" employees who web-surf at work is because it generally isn't worth it. The reason the record companies haven't gone after every last person who downloaded a song from Napster is because it generally isn't worth it. The costs involved far outweigh any possible benefit.
Having "a good head on" does not make things correct or right or legal. It probably minimizes your chances of being caught, but it doesn't make lighting up a fattie any less illegal.
Kierthos
Gee, that's funny, because I can turn on the radio in my brother's car without having the engine running, therefore it consumes no gasoline.
What it does do is slowly drain the battery, because the engine is not running, powering the alternator and keeping the battery at charge.
Regardless, the man is probably screwed. I know for certain that if I (or anyone else) had used the USC (South Carolina, not Southern California, more's the shame) computers for a stunt like this, I would be lucky if I walked away with expulsion. Considering that the admins gave MUD'ers a hard time even when no one else wanted to use the computers, they're an uptight bunch (understandably though).
Although, I must say, they have no problems with SETI@home, or other shared processing programs that do not award prizes.
Kierthos