Both of them were educated either by the military or on military scholarships.
No really... My English grand father was taught trigonometry because it was important for calculating artillery strikes. Poor guy was in the Royal Artillery... they did not wear ear protection in those days... Deaf as a post by the time I knew him.
My American grand father went to UCLA on an army scholarship.
You can bitch about that if you want... but my grand fathers would call you pansies. They didn't have the money to pay for school and they didn't whine about it. They took the options life offered them and thrived.
Learn from that. If you engage every situation expecting a handout you won't be worth educating. What are you worth to society if you always expect society to foot the bill? What do you offer in exchange? Anything? Why are you worth the system's time? If you're poor... point one is that you'd better appreciate you're at a disadvantage. That's just reality. Don't compound your misfortune by antagonizing everyone with a guilt trip.
As to copyrighted books that do offer something that public domain books do not... I am fine with that. And I did say that there were cases where there were such books. However, not in all cases. And if you're dealing with undergradutate subjects it would not be surprising if you could very easily teach the class using such materials. Furthermore, the whole point of this online education push is to increase the avaliability of free education materials. Look around. Everything from the Khan Academy to the online courses to now public domain textbooks.
Big names are going out of their way to build this future. You think the old system is going to be able to hunker down and ride out this storm? Possibly for their graduate programs. Which I'll point out that I acknowledged previously. However, their cash cow undergraduate programs are forfeit. One way or another that is getting peeled away. Its too expensive and to necessary for our society. Sadly the high school system which used to provide most of that education simply isn't working properly anymore. A mixture of several institutional cancers have eaten out its soul. Colleges picked up the slack... For a price. A price we can no longer pay. And now technology comes to the rescue... Again. You can disagree but the status quo is unacceptable.
And as to the existing books having appeal... the students do not choose them and so that remains an invalid argument.
Without choice it is impossible to claim they prefer them. Again, if I stuck you a metal box with nothing but popcorn... could I claim you prefer popcorn to all other foods in existence? By your logic... I could. Which is why your argument was absurd.
As to rants on slashdot not being reflective of widespread opinion... You do appreciate that is a reversible argument... Right?
In any case, this is an argument that will be proven by what people do and how the situation evolves. Time will prove one or both of us wrong. We'll see what tomorrow says.
the interest group doesn't exclusively push for more oil. It pushes for a lot of things at once.
Take the bits you might not totally agree with the bits you don't agree with...
Furthermore, electric cars cannot replace gas cars in the near future. So pushing for that is not reasonable.
All he will do by pushing against gas at this point in time is make cost of living costs go up for Americans. NOTHING else will come from it. So if that's what he wants f' him.
I'm a fan of spaceX... and I generally like the guy and what he's done. But he has to be reasonable or I can't think of him as a reasonable person. And unreasonable people are not to be taken seriously.
Its always "you're with us or against us"... Which means its impossible to agree on some things but not on others because if you fail to agree on anything you're suddenly the enemy.
No... you investigate every instance and track it back until you can find the person responsible for it. If it goes all the way to the top then it goes all the way to the top. But you don't presume that.
You investigate impartially lest you make the same mistake by demonstrating prejudice in your investigation.
That actually isn't that impressive. How many pedophiles have remained on public school pay rolls?
As to why no one is being disciplined... look what happened with fast and furious.
I'm guessing the reason no one is being disciplined here has more to do with the people actually responsible being higher up on the food chain then they want to admit. They say "its only small people... pay no attention" and then hope it all goes away. If the congressional investigation gets anywhere with its probe then we might get more interesting revelations.
Whether the probes will succeed is anyone's guess. The executive branch seems immune to oversight and shameless at claiming national security privilege every time they want something to go away.
This should seriously worry you. Remember that anything used against one side can be used against the other.
Want liberal groups harassed by the IRS? Or should we do something about protecting political speech and preventing federal agencies from being used partisan chess pieces.
How can we trust the FBI or the CIA if we assume they're loyal to a political party and not the American people and the law?
By that genius logic you could conclude that people in North Korea are happy with everything they get because they consume it.
Its an extreme example but it hammers the point home. Choice is essential to make arguments about preference. If people are given no choice they cannot be said to prefer one thing or another due to what they consume.
If I stick you in a box with nothing but popcorn, could I conclude you prefer popcorn to all other types of food because you don't eat anything else? By your argument... apparently.
Sorry if that is coming off hostile. I have no ill will toward you. However, I do want to kill your argument with fire, cut it into a dozen bits, and bury them separately. Its a terrible argument that is unsupportable. Again, the hostility is not against you. It is against the argument. The argument is wrong. *cuts its head off and pushes the body off the castle wall*
... They have squandered so much potential and they seem to determined to squander their vast fortune buying out one failed project after another and running it thoroughly into the ground.
I'm sure there already are free textbooks in pretty much all the undergraduate courses which are the real issue. Once you get into masters programs I can see some point to the proprietary books. But for undergraduate courses or high school courses? Its absurd.
As to appeal, you have no way to know that when people aren't being given a choice. Students do not choose their textbooks.
As to making money being or not being ethical... Again you've confused me with someone else. Your argument is a straw man. You think I'm someone I'm not and have started arguing robotically against me never mind that you lack the information to make such judgements. I have no problem with people making profit. I have a problem with having no choice over who serves me when I pay for something. If I have no choice, then I'd just assume it not become an easy target for casual exploitation.
As to offense, then I misread your post. We'll leave it at that.
As to open source content offering everything... That isn't really what I was saying. I was talking about university textbooks. Especially books covering well trodden subjects that haven't really changed remarkably in a long time... especially at the undergraduate level.
Now I see that your argument was largely a reaction to the term "open source" that you feel with some legitimacy is treated as a panacea for all things wrong in the universe. I've seen the same trend on slashdot a few times and have likewise shaken my head at them.
I am not however talking about open source in general and probably that's the wrong term for these books. Rather, public domain or something with a less rapacious license agreement. Especially for truly OLD content... content that was old long before any of us were born... I'd expect not to pay high licensing fees. For example, if I get the collected works of Shakespeare for an English Lit class should I pay a lot for that book? Now, clearly if someone went to the trouble of printing a big book for me then that has to be compensated. The book cost money to manufacture. But it cost NOTHING to write because the people publishing it didn't write it. So if and when I do buy that book, I expect to pay for manufacturing and distribution. But I am NOT paying for editing or authorship since it can't be edited without misrepresenting itself and the author is extremely dead.
I am not some pie eyed idealist. I can see why you might think that given their frequency on this board. But my post was more about an effective monopoly that exists in the school publishing market and how this might help to alleviate that situation.
Of course, they're outselling the poorest selling portion of the market so it doesn't really matter.
But regardless, good for them. I suspect some of this is to get big names to consider putting their product in their devices. Seems reasonable if it pays off.
Okay... first let me acknowledge your hostility. I don't understand why you're so worked up but possibly I gave some offense.
Getting past that, lets go through your argument point by point.
1. The market is not really given a choice here since students don't really have a choice and professors aren't really buying the books. Therefore conventional market forces do not operate. Here you're going to tell me students could always choose to leave a class but that's a big hassle. Often students can't even change professors despite them being terrible because the university simply doesn't have another class that fulfills degree requirements in time slots the student has open. That being the case students will suffer bad professors or even classes they do not want but which fulfill requirements and so are taken regardless.
2. While I have no problem with admitting that the professor is more likely to know whether a given text book satisifies class requirements then myself, I do question whether they're terribly concerned about picking the best book. Its low on their personal list of things they care about. They choose something sufficient and then move on to something else.
3. As to my "agenda" you really have no idea what my agenda is and have therefore assumed it. Possibly you've somehow rolled the dice correctly and randomly derived by whole world view. But that is unlikely. As to my agenda and how it relates to this issue, my interest is in freeing students to make choices that are in their best interest. Further, I am offended by any institution that exploits captive consumers and abuses that situation.
4. As to believers, what we are dealing with here are market forces. Believers don't enter into the equation. What you are contending with is the rising of the sun in the east which will make its passage across the sky and set in the west. Certain things inevidably follow from certain conditions. We and witnessing a transformation of many segments of our economy and various institutions throughout our society. Everything from this web 2.0 media outlet we are arguing in to changes in manufacturing, to various other changes throughout our society. Why would education remain unchanged when everything else is changing? That's unrealistic. Now can I predict what those changes might be or their consequences? No. I am not a fortune teller. However, I do see "pressures" that have been built up over a long time and certain technological and social changes are creating opportunities for release. My prediction is that the pressure is great enough in certain situations that those paths will be used to release the pressure. I further predict that with that use it will trail break the path thus making it easier. This will effectively catalyze the reaction making it progressively easier to self sustain.
I regret your emotional antipathy. But I suspect it is born of confusion, misapprehension, and misplaced hostility. I am not your enemy.
I understand your point but disagree because I don't want to argue the point so they understand. I want to argue the point so I'm honest about my position.
For example, it is common for the "gun grabbers" to argue for higher documentation or background checks of legal gun owners. That is their version of your argument about the first amendment. The problem is that its dishonest. They don't actually care about background checks because their problem is not that the occasional criminal gets a gun or that there isn't enough training for people that have them. Its that civilians in general are able to get the guns. THAT is their issue. Everything else is merely a pretext to make the guns less accessible or raise the cost of ownership.
Likewise, for me, the association between a gun and my rights is more applicable to my right to vote. It is something citizens have a right to have. Now the right to freedom of speech is not something we restrict to citizens. A foreign national can speak their own mind in the US and likely cite the first amendment to protect himself. But he can't own a gun or vote.
Thus if I'm honest... that is the rational association.
I could argue otherwise but it would be dishonest.
That isn't to say that I feel such people are entitled to my honest opinion. After all, they hold my rights in contempt and seek to turn me into a peasant. Not only for myself but my family and all generations to come. Against such a mentality, there is no requirement for civility or honesty beyond what is expedient and prudent for my own ends.
Slashdot Mirror
You criticize people that defend their countries from Nazis and then call others cowards?
You really are quite stupid.
I mean something happening in the year or so. The ground work is being laid now. It is already happening.
Whether I am right or you are right will be proven in the next couple years.
Till then.
Then you can't object to anything I'm saying because I'm talking about the immediately future.
Since you don't address the future you are not commenting on anything I've said.
You literally cannot criticize my position without speculating.
So which is it? Are you speculating and therefore vulnerable to being proven wrong? Or do you have no point what so ever?
Choose.
You will not weasel around this point. I am not stupid. Silly semantic arguments will not stand.
Both of them were educated either by the military or on military scholarships.
No really... My English grand father was taught trigonometry because it was important for calculating artillery strikes. Poor guy was in the Royal Artillery... they did not wear ear protection in those days... Deaf as a post by the time I knew him.
My American grand father went to UCLA on an army scholarship.
You can bitch about that if you want... but my grand fathers would call you pansies. They didn't have the money to pay for school and they didn't whine about it. They took the options life offered them and thrived.
Learn from that. If you engage every situation expecting a handout you won't be worth educating. What are you worth to society if you always expect society to foot the bill? What do you offer in exchange? Anything? Why are you worth the system's time? If you're poor... point one is that you'd better appreciate you're at a disadvantage. That's just reality. Don't compound your misfortune by antagonizing everyone with a guilt trip.
As to copyrighted books that do offer something that public domain books do not... I am fine with that. And I did say that there were cases where there were such books. However, not in all cases. And if you're dealing with undergradutate subjects it would not be surprising if you could very easily teach the class using such materials. Furthermore, the whole point of this online education push is to increase the avaliability of free education materials. Look around. Everything from the Khan Academy to the online courses to now public domain textbooks.
Big names are going out of their way to build this future. You think the old system is going to be able to hunker down and ride out this storm? Possibly for their graduate programs. Which I'll point out that I acknowledged previously. However, their cash cow undergraduate programs are forfeit. One way or another that is getting peeled away. Its too expensive and to necessary for our society. Sadly the high school system which used to provide most of that education simply isn't working properly anymore. A mixture of several institutional cancers have eaten out its soul. Colleges picked up the slack... For a price. A price we can no longer pay. And now technology comes to the rescue... Again. You can disagree but the status quo is unacceptable.
And as to the existing books having appeal... the students do not choose them and so that remains an invalid argument.
Without choice it is impossible to claim they prefer them. Again, if I stuck you a metal box with nothing but popcorn... could I claim you prefer popcorn to all other foods in existence? By your logic... I could. Which is why your argument was absurd.
As to rants on slashdot not being reflective of widespread opinion... You do appreciate that is a reversible argument... Right?
In any case, this is an argument that will be proven by what people do and how the situation evolves. Time will prove one or both of us wrong. We'll see what tomorrow says.
Bingo... Everyone throw your hands in the air and scream like you just don't care.
I didn't say anything what so ever. That's a straw man on your part. I limited my comment.
If you're not going to argue the point honestly then you forfeit your point and I can disregard your comment entirely.
Either argue honestly or you've no case.
the interest group doesn't exclusively push for more oil. It pushes for a lot of things at once.
Take the bits you might not totally agree with the bits you don't agree with...
Furthermore, electric cars cannot replace gas cars in the near future. So pushing for that is not reasonable.
All he will do by pushing against gas at this point in time is make cost of living costs go up for Americans. NOTHING else will come from it. So if that's what he wants f' him.
I'm a fan of spaceX... and I generally like the guy and what he's done. But he has to be reasonable or I can't think of him as a reasonable person. And unreasonable people are not to be taken seriously.
Its always "you're with us or against us"... Which means its impossible to agree on some things but not on others because if you fail to agree on anything you're suddenly the enemy.
Its sad.
No... you investigate every instance and track it back until you can find the person responsible for it. If it goes all the way to the top then it goes all the way to the top. But you don't presume that.
You investigate impartially lest you make the same mistake by demonstrating prejudice in your investigation.
We all have sharp teeth and eyes that shine by night.
Things can get very ugly if they want to play a game of chicken over this issue.
That actually isn't that impressive. How many pedophiles have remained on public school pay rolls?
As to why no one is being disciplined... look what happened with fast and furious.
I'm guessing the reason no one is being disciplined here has more to do with the people actually responsible being higher up on the food chain then they want to admit. They say "its only small people... pay no attention" and then hope it all goes away. If the congressional investigation gets anywhere with its probe then we might get more interesting revelations.
Whether the probes will succeed is anyone's guess. The executive branch seems immune to oversight and shameless at claiming national security privilege every time they want something to go away.
unlikely... this sort of intimidation thrives in darkness. This is very damaging to the IRS.
I didn't mean to imply this was the first time. Rather that it is a shared threat to all factions.
Public institutions must be neutral and impartial or they cannot legitimately regulate all groups.
If the IRS doesn't clean house then it will have credibility problems when it gets to court.
Same thing with the EPA etc. If these groups can be demonstrated to be biased then they'll lose legitimacy.
Its clean up or die.
This should seriously worry you. Remember that anything used against one side can be used against the other.
Want liberal groups harassed by the IRS? Or should we do something about protecting political speech and preventing federal agencies from being used partisan chess pieces.
How can we trust the FBI or the CIA if we assume they're loyal to a political party and not the American people and the law?
This is non-functional.
By that genius logic you could conclude that people in North Korea are happy with everything they get because they consume it.
Its an extreme example but it hammers the point home. Choice is essential to make arguments about preference. If people are given no choice they cannot be said to prefer one thing or another due to what they consume.
If I stick you in a box with nothing but popcorn, could I conclude you prefer popcorn to all other types of food because you don't eat anything else? By your argument... apparently.
Sorry if that is coming off hostile. I have no ill will toward you. However, I do want to kill your argument with fire, cut it into a dozen bits, and bury them separately. Its a terrible argument that is unsupportable. Again, the hostility is not against you. It is against the argument. The argument is wrong. *cuts its head off and pushes the body off the castle wall*
The argument is dead.
... They have squandered so much potential and they seem to determined to squander their vast fortune buying out one failed project after another and running it thoroughly into the ground.
They literally cannot offer mass appeal since the students are not given any choice in the matter.
Its an absurd argument. Please make a less silly one.
I'm sure there already are free textbooks in pretty much all the undergraduate courses which are the real issue. Once you get into masters programs I can see some point to the proprietary books. But for undergraduate courses or high school courses? Its absurd.
As to appeal, you have no way to know that when people aren't being given a choice. Students do not choose their textbooks.
As to making money being or not being ethical... Again you've confused me with someone else. Your argument is a straw man. You think I'm someone I'm not and have started arguing robotically against me never mind that you lack the information to make such judgements. I have no problem with people making profit. I have a problem with having no choice over who serves me when I pay for something. If I have no choice, then I'd just assume it not become an easy target for casual exploitation.
As to offense, then I misread your post. We'll leave it at that.
As to open source content offering everything... That isn't really what I was saying. I was talking about university textbooks. Especially books covering well trodden subjects that haven't really changed remarkably in a long time... especially at the undergraduate level.
Now I see that your argument was largely a reaction to the term "open source" that you feel with some legitimacy is treated as a panacea for all things wrong in the universe. I've seen the same trend on slashdot a few times and have likewise shaken my head at them.
I am not however talking about open source in general and probably that's the wrong term for these books. Rather, public domain or something with a less rapacious license agreement. Especially for truly OLD content... content that was old long before any of us were born... I'd expect not to pay high licensing fees. For example, if I get the collected works of Shakespeare for an English Lit class should I pay a lot for that book? Now, clearly if someone went to the trouble of printing a big book for me then that has to be compensated. The book cost money to manufacture. But it cost NOTHING to write because the people publishing it didn't write it. So if and when I do buy that book, I expect to pay for manufacturing and distribution. But I am NOT paying for editing or authorship since it can't be edited without misrepresenting itself and the author is extremely dead.
I am not some pie eyed idealist. I can see why you might think that given their frequency on this board. But my post was more about an effective monopoly that exists in the school publishing market and how this might help to alleviate that situation.
People aren't encrypting enough...
Its clearly too easy for them. If we encrypt more then they might have a harder time violating rights.
Of course, they're outselling the poorest selling portion of the market so it doesn't really matter.
But regardless, good for them. I suspect some of this is to get big names to consider putting their product in their devices. Seems reasonable if it pays off.
Le sigh, sir.
Okay... first let me acknowledge your hostility. I don't understand why you're so worked up but possibly I gave some offense.
Getting past that, lets go through your argument point by point.
1. The market is not really given a choice here since students don't really have a choice and professors aren't really buying the books. Therefore conventional market forces do not operate. Here you're going to tell me students could always choose to leave a class but that's a big hassle. Often students can't even change professors despite them being terrible because the university simply doesn't have another class that fulfills degree requirements in time slots the student has open. That being the case students will suffer bad professors or even classes they do not want but which fulfill requirements and so are taken regardless.
2. While I have no problem with admitting that the professor is more likely to know whether a given text book satisifies class requirements then myself, I do question whether they're terribly concerned about picking the best book. Its low on their personal list of things they care about. They choose something sufficient and then move on to something else.
3. As to my "agenda" you really have no idea what my agenda is and have therefore assumed it. Possibly you've somehow rolled the dice correctly and randomly derived by whole world view. But that is unlikely. As to my agenda and how it relates to this issue, my interest is in freeing students to make choices that are in their best interest. Further, I am offended by any institution that exploits captive consumers and abuses that situation.
4. As to believers, what we are dealing with here are market forces. Believers don't enter into the equation. What you are contending with is the rising of the sun in the east which will make its passage across the sky and set in the west. Certain things inevidably follow from certain conditions. We and witnessing a transformation of many segments of our economy and various institutions throughout our society. Everything from this web 2.0 media outlet we are arguing in to changes in manufacturing, to various other changes throughout our society. Why would education remain unchanged when everything else is changing? That's unrealistic. Now can I predict what those changes might be or their consequences? No. I am not a fortune teller. However, I do see "pressures" that have been built up over a long time and certain technological and social changes are creating opportunities for release. My prediction is that the pressure is great enough in certain situations that those paths will be used to release the pressure. I further predict that with that use it will trail break the path thus making it easier. This will effectively catalyze the reaction making it progressively easier to self sustain.
I regret your emotional antipathy. But I suspect it is born of confusion, misapprehension, and misplaced hostility. I am not your enemy.
Have a lolly pop and go about your business.
I understand your point but disagree because I don't want to argue the point so they understand. I want to argue the point so I'm honest about my position.
For example, it is common for the "gun grabbers" to argue for higher documentation or background checks of legal gun owners. That is their version of your argument about the first amendment. The problem is that its dishonest. They don't actually care about background checks because their problem is not that the occasional criminal gets a gun or that there isn't enough training for people that have them. Its that civilians in general are able to get the guns. THAT is their issue. Everything else is merely a pretext to make the guns less accessible or raise the cost of ownership.
Likewise, for me, the association between a gun and my rights is more applicable to my right to vote. It is something citizens have a right to have. Now the right to freedom of speech is not something we restrict to citizens. A foreign national can speak their own mind in the US and likely cite the first amendment to protect himself. But he can't own a gun or vote.
Thus if I'm honest... that is the rational association.
I could argue otherwise but it would be dishonest.
That isn't to say that I feel such people are entitled to my honest opinion. After all, they hold my rights in contempt and seek to turn me into a peasant. Not only for myself but my family and all generations to come. Against such a mentality, there is no requirement for civility or honesty beyond what is expedient and prudent for my own ends.