Not only do you save on tuition, but you may be learning more important skills.
I got my BSEE from a really crappy college, and I can say with confidence that the professors taught me nothing. Since our teachers were generally not helpful, and sometimes even absent from class, we learned to rely on ourselves rather than on the teacher. We learned to just pick up books and teach ourselves everything. If we didn't understand, we'd check out more books, go on the internet, etc... until we understood.
Of course, we would have learned more if we had decent teachers, but the ability to learn with no help from 'experts' was probably more valuable than anything we would have learned in those classes.
I know this story is borderline troll, but I can't resist, so here goes:
Everyone always says how this will decrease the power of their US monopoly, but has anyone considered what it would do to the non-US market for Windows? Take China for example - nearly every copy of windows is pirated, and microsoft is having big problems getting in.
So it all boils down to this:
1 - If they keep selling their cheap, minimal windows, people will move to linux because it's so limited
2 - If they shut down all the pirated windows, people will move to linux virtually overnight
3 - They sell full-blown windows, but at a heavy discount, like $5 a copy or something
1 & 2 end badly for microsoft, and if 3 happens, US users/OEMs will buy chinese copies because they're so much cheaper, which means major decreased revenues. This is not a minor US-only type thing, this is a pretty fundamental blow to their business...
If they do the shutdowns, they will have basically guaranteed that the rest of the world outside the US/Europe/Japan will be hardcore linux only
PS - keep in mind, if Asia/China/Africa go linux, development will take off, which will pose critical long term problems for their US/Europe/Japan business.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only do you save on tuition, but you may be learning more important skills.
I got my BSEE from a really crappy college, and I can say with confidence that the professors taught me nothing. Since our teachers were generally not helpful, and sometimes even absent from class, we learned to rely on ourselves rather than on the teacher. We learned to just pick up books and teach ourselves everything. If we didn't understand, we'd check out more books, go on the internet, etc... until we understood.
Of course, we would have learned more if we had decent teachers, but the ability to learn with no help from 'experts' was probably more valuable than anything we would have learned in those classes.
Due in part to the slashdot effect, newegg's windows rating has just gone down to 0.01
I know this story is borderline troll, but I can't resist, so here goes:
Everyone always says how this will decrease the power of their US monopoly, but has anyone considered what it would do to the non-US market for Windows? Take China for example - nearly every copy of windows is pirated, and microsoft is having big problems getting in.
So it all boils down to this: 1 - If they keep selling their cheap, minimal windows, people will move to linux because it's so limited
2 - If they shut down all the pirated windows, people will move to linux virtually overnight
3 - They sell full-blown windows, but at a heavy discount, like $5 a copy or something
1 & 2 end badly for microsoft, and if 3 happens, US users/OEMs will buy chinese copies because they're so much cheaper, which means major decreased revenues. This is not a minor US-only type thing, this is a pretty fundamental blow to their business...
If they do the shutdowns, they will have basically guaranteed that the rest of the world outside the US/Europe/Japan will be hardcore linux only
PS - keep in mind, if Asia/China/Africa go linux, development will take off, which will pose critical long term problems for their US/Europe/Japan business.