As a 40-something playing ultimate with much younger folks, I feel for you. But here, too, experience has a huge impact. I generally am at the place I need to be to make a play sooner than I was at age 27, even though I get there slower. And I know when to exert, when to coast a bit. The game has a richness and feel to it that it never had for me at age 30. I can read my team and the opponent and see which individuals and which situations are going to make the biggest impact on the outcome.
And few things are more enjoyable than beating someone half your age to the disc.
One such thing is the relational aspect of it - seeing these "kids" grow into amazing players and knowing I have a stake in that. Perhaps that's more related to having young 'uns of my own. If that's the consolation for mental and physical decline, I'll take it!
Most external hard drives house either a 3.5" or a 2.5" internal ATA hard drive.
If you don't mind leaving the case open and swapping as needed, this is a zero monetary cost method of accessing old hard drives of similar dimensions. Do 2.5" drives have same interface as 3.5 ones? If so then even better!
Publishers who do not keep up with the 2-4 year revision cycle lose market share. I'm not saying that publishers do not also want to keep selling new books, but it's a double-whammy: not only do publishers not see any revenue from the second, third, etc. sale of a book, but if they try to be "good citizens" by deferring a new edition by a year or two, they competition will pick up from 10-40% of their business in the interim. So when they look to finally sell the new edition, it's a much tougher sell, with lower revenue.
Professors in committees all say, "all textbooks are the same," yet many choose the latest, greatest, shiny new thing for their students.
Open textbooks are a wonderful thing that will accelerate the downward pricing of textbooks.
Reality check: you, the professor, are charged with identifying the most cost-effective resources available to your students. If you rely primarily on publishers' reps to scope out your options, then shame on you for pointing the finger at others. Search engines are an excellent resource for identifying and even accessing voluminous free and fair-use resources for your students, and you, to employ in your course.
Professors who choose textbooks with newer editions and the latest/greatest hyped features without careful analysis of costs and benefits are primarily responsible for the disproportionate increase in testbook prices. Publishers are for the most part selling a particular presentation of widely available information. As a business, they adapt more or less rationally to the behavior of you, the professor. The question is how well your behavior represents your professed values, and how well it serves the needs of the ultimate consumer, the student.
Any undergraduate professor who couldn't pull together enough free online resources to combine with their own worksheets, etc. to teach their course needs to look a little closer to home for the root of the problem.
The adoption of a textbook by a professor implies the existence of substantial content of benefit to the student. If the cost of a text is 1/3 the cost of the course tuition, one would expect that the content/media of the text (including online homework, etc.) is worth at least 1/4 of the overall value of the course to the student(note: 1 + 1/3 =4/3 and 1/3 is 1/4 of 4/3).
I've been in classes where the value of the book far exceeded the value of the rest of what I paid for. I resented the $100 for the text much less than the $400 in tuition.
Unlike the professions in which many here appear to find themselves, most textbooks are in fields which change on a frequent basis. Including college algebra. While the content itself does not change, the teaching does. While one may dispute the significance of the changes, publishers which do not keep to a 2- to 3- year cycle find themselves losing market share due to professor perception of material being out-of-date.
Any market in which the decision maker (professor) is not the ultimate purchaser (student) is going to have such problems.
The relative wealth of comments focusing on the (valid but relatively small %) corrupt and conspiracy angle, and the paucity of systems-oriented remarks does not reflect well on this venue.
Actually, we do have a new overlord- one that lives within us. After our hero touched the historic swatch of soft tissue, he rubbed the sweat from his brow, unleashing the long-dormant nemesis of a prehistoric king of the beasts upon the contemporary one.
And so, the virus that wiped out T-Rex quietly gains momentum within its new host population. As it has a median incubation period of several years (enabling itself to gain full access to the population before wreaking its havoc), we still have a month or two before the "Jurassic bird flu" starts to make headlines.
I would like to be the first to thank our hero for conclusively proving what wiped out the dinosaurs, though I suppose I could have lived without this knowledge.
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As a 40-something playing ultimate with much younger folks, I feel for you. But here, too, experience has a huge impact. I generally am at the place I need to be to make a play sooner than I was at age 27, even though I get there slower. And I know when to exert, when to coast a bit. The game has a richness and feel to it that it never had for me at age 30. I can read my team and the opponent and see which individuals and which situations are going to make the biggest impact on the outcome. And few things are more enjoyable than beating someone half your age to the disc. One such thing is the relational aspect of it - seeing these "kids" grow into amazing players and knowing I have a stake in that. Perhaps that's more related to having young 'uns of my own. If that's the consolation for mental and physical decline, I'll take it!
Most external hard drives house either a 3.5" or a 2.5" internal ATA hard drive. If you don't mind leaving the case open and swapping as needed, this is a zero monetary cost method of accessing old hard drives of similar dimensions. Do 2.5" drives have same interface as 3.5 ones? If so then even better!
Publishers who do not keep up with the 2-4 year revision cycle lose market share. I'm not saying that publishers do not also want to keep selling new books, but it's a double-whammy: not only do publishers not see any revenue from the second, third, etc. sale of a book, but if they try to be "good citizens" by deferring a new edition by a year or two, they competition will pick up from 10-40% of their business in the interim. So when they look to finally sell the new edition, it's a much tougher sell, with lower revenue. Professors in committees all say, "all textbooks are the same," yet many choose the latest, greatest, shiny new thing for their students. Open textbooks are a wonderful thing that will accelerate the downward pricing of textbooks.
Reality check: you, the professor, are charged with identifying the most cost-effective resources available to your students. If you rely primarily on publishers' reps to scope out your options, then shame on you for pointing the finger at others. Search engines are an excellent resource for identifying and even accessing voluminous free and fair-use resources for your students, and you, to employ in your course.
Professors who choose textbooks with newer editions and the latest/greatest hyped features without careful analysis of costs and benefits are primarily responsible for the disproportionate increase in testbook prices. Publishers are for the most part selling a particular presentation of widely available information. As a business, they adapt more or less rationally to the behavior of you, the professor. The question is how well your behavior represents your professed values, and how well it serves the needs of the ultimate consumer, the student.
Any undergraduate professor who couldn't pull together enough free online resources to combine with their own worksheets, etc. to teach their course needs to look a little closer to home for the root of the problem.
The adoption of a textbook by a professor implies the existence of substantial content of benefit to the student. If the cost of a text is 1/3 the cost of the course tuition, one would expect that the content/media of the text (including online homework, etc.) is worth at least 1/4 of the overall value of the course to the student(note: 1 + 1/3 =4/3 and 1/3 is 1/4 of 4/3).
I've been in classes where the value of the book far exceeded the value of the rest of what I paid for. I resented the $100 for the text much less than the $400 in tuition.
Unlike the professions in which many here appear to find themselves, most textbooks are in fields which change on a frequent basis. Including college algebra. While the content itself does not change, the teaching does. While one may dispute the significance of the changes, publishers which do not keep to a 2- to 3- year cycle find themselves losing market share due to professor perception of material being out-of-date. Any market in which the decision maker (professor) is not the ultimate purchaser (student) is going to have such problems. The relative wealth of comments focusing on the (valid but relatively small %) corrupt and conspiracy angle, and the paucity of systems-oriented remarks does not reflect well on this venue.
Actually, we do have a new overlord- one that lives within us. After our hero touched the historic swatch of soft tissue, he rubbed the sweat from his brow, unleashing the long-dormant nemesis of a prehistoric king of the beasts upon the contemporary one. And so, the virus that wiped out T-Rex quietly gains momentum within its new host population. As it has a median incubation period of several years (enabling itself to gain full access to the population before wreaking its havoc), we still have a month or two before the "Jurassic bird flu" starts to make headlines. I would like to be the first to thank our hero for conclusively proving what wiped out the dinosaurs, though I suppose I could have lived without this knowledge.