
Time Series Analysis  and Its Applications: With R Examples - Anon84
http://www.stat.pitt.edu/stoffer/tsa3/
======
cantrevealname
Apropos of the link, there is a famous paperback book literally named "Steal
This Book" written by 1960's counterculture activist Abbie Hoffman.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal_this_book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal_this_book)

Booksellers (who dared sell it) typically kept it behind the counter since the
intended audience did steal it.

The antics of Abbie Hoffman were legendary: He once brought the New York Stock
Exchange to a halt for several minutes when he threw hundreds of $1 bills from
the visitors gallery onto the NYSE trading floor, and all the brokers scurried
around grabbing the money. The gallery was separated from the trading floor by
bullet-proof glass shortly after his visit.

The book is chock full of hacking techniques, by which I mean using systems
(subways, payphones, shelter, society, politics) in unexpected ways. Contrary
to popular belief, the content of the book is mostly _legal_ things one can do
to live for free.

Reflecting the times, Hoffman's politics are very socialist, not libertarian.
However, the book would be well appreciated by HN readers. I'm sure there are
free copies easily found on the web.

~~~
pron
Many HNers are socialist. Libertarianism is common among the younger ones.

~~~
chris_wot
That's because they don't know any better.

~~~
melling
Any theories as to why? Whatever the truth is, it's even more important to
understand why something is a certain way.

~~~
chris_wot
I put it down to experience. It sounds great, until you actually try to live
it for a lengthy period. Ayn Rand, after all, eventually collected social
security.

~~~
gw
Was she a hypocrite for buying from state-run food depots when she lived in
the Soviet Union, as well? Are free market advocates now obligated to starve
themselves before taking money out of a system they were forced to pay into?
That's quite a stacked deck of cards you're arguing with.

~~~
specialist
Observable reality and pointing out logical inconsistencies (hypocrisy) are
generally considered fair game.

~~~
gw
Truisms that assume the very thing under debate are generally considered not
useful in moving a discussion forward.

------
LinaLauneBaer
I am an author of 1-2 books about programming (Cocoa & Objective-C). The books
my co-author any myself wrote are very "thick" (about 700 pages each) and we
get about 1 Euro per copy sold. Although the books we wrote are among the best
selling programming books in Germany we do not make a fortune. We make most of
our money indirectly from the books: consulting, seminars.

When I found the torrent for our books I was pretty happy about it to be
honest. :) Of course our publisher does not like it for sure. I have thought
about publishing new books on my own so that I get more than 1 Euro per copy.
Then again: The German speaking audience is too small in my opinion.

So if I had the balls I would make similar statements.

~~~
lignuist
I wonder why authors are still working with those publishers and not switching
to print on demand or even giving digital copies away for free in order to
reach a larger audience. I never published a book, but to me it looks like the
publishers are selling the books for pretty high prices, while giving the
authors only ridiculous shares of that. Is the editing, printing and marketing
job they do really worth it?

~~~
davidw
> giving digital copies away for free in order to reach a larger audience.

Some people want to make a living at it, at the risk of having a smaller
audience.

~~~
graeme
Those aren't exclusive goals. Michael Hartl has had great success with a free
HTML version of rails tutorial. I presume zed shaw is also making money with
his learn X the hard way series.

I'm not a programmer, but I've released a free HTML version of my books and
print sales didn't decline at all. Too soon to be certain, but they may have
increased. I sell PDF copies too.

------
nisa
libgen.org is one of the most important sites on the internet at the moment.
Yes it's illegal. But it enables you to gain knowledge and have your textbooks
if you want to learn something. If you don't have the money for textbooks and
no library at hand you are in a worse position. I'm sure that a lot of people
started their career and deep understanding of internet technologies by
reading illegal downloaded books and eating everything that is in them.

~~~
shn
I first try to find a book without paying. If I read a good chunk of it, if it
is any good I buy the book. Otherwise I would have to pay a fortune for all
the books I browse and probably may not end up reading.

------
mherdeg
In case anyone is curious to understand this comment thread, the original
submitted title of this link was "Steal this book". It has since been changed
to "Time Series Analysis and Its Applications: With R Examples".

~~~
NnamdiJr
Thanks for the explanation. I was confused why this thread seemed totally off
topic with no one commenting on Time Series Analysis.

------
sz4kerto
I'm just guessing, but what probably happens here is that the authors don't
get too much money per sold copy anyway, and the benefit of being an author of
a very popular book is probably higher than of collecting the royalties for a
few sold copies.

~~~
drunkenmasta
Seems to me like they are trying to get libgen into the spotlight so it might
be shutdown. Remember library.nu?

"If you want to steal the text, it's pretty easy to find an illegal copy, but
you can get a nice illegal copy from LibGen. There's little risk in stealing
stuff off the internet,"

~~~
nisa
It looks like they implemented some countermeasures. There is an I2P service
for the site and you can download torrents of the content:
ftp://libgen.org/repository_torrent/

------
kriro
1) Great, more textbooks need to be available for everyone.

2) The EZ version is an interesting idea. Somewhat automatically generating
easier/higher level versions of textbooks sounds like an interesting problem.

I think automatically changing the examples to problem domains that interest
the readers (or that make less assumptions) is an interesting subproblem.
Textbook mass customization if you want. I've come across quite a few
textbooks that used examples that were pretty common for someone who is
already familiar with the domain but for someone coming in with 0 knowledge
they just seemed esoteric (think programming books that use compiler/parser
examples). Simply swapping those out for something more approachable for the
general audience could increase the value of some textbooks quite a bit.

~~~
ivan_ah
> increase the value of some textbooks quite a bit

I think so too! This idea has been around for a long time. Marshall McLuhan
suggested the idea of a "custom book" almost 50 years ago, yet still nobody
has done it:

[http://minireference.com/book/marshall_mcluhan_quote](http://minireference.com/book/marshall_mcluhan_quote)

I'm currently working on software for generating custom version of my math
book. There already exists an XML format called DITA which has conditional-
text, but I'm started from scratch.

------
biehl
How about "Copy this book" instead of the fake, dishonest "stealing" claim...

~~~
Millennium
Because the people who tell themselves piracy isn't theft are lying to
themselves.

~~~
e12e
Theft \Theft\ (th[e^]ft), n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e,
[thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e.

See {Thief}.]

1\. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing
of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the
same; larceny. [1913 Webster]

Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent,
and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must
be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at
least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See {Larceny}, and
the Note under {Robbery}. [1913 Webster]

~~~
throwawaykf
_> the act or crime of stealing;_

[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/steal](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/steal)

steal [steel] stole, sto·len, steal·ing, noun verb (used with object)

1\. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right,
especially secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.

2\. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or
acknowledgment.

...

Some jurisdictions have a much broader definition of theft too, e.g.:
[http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9a.56.020](http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9a.56.020)

1) "Theft" means:

(a) To wrongfully obtain or exert unauthorized control over the property or
services of another or _the value thereof_ , with intent to deprive him or her
of such property or services; or

(b) By color or aid of deception to obtain control over the property or
services of another or _the value thereof_ , with intent to deprive him or her
of such property or services; or

(c) To appropriate lost or misdelivered property or services of another, or
the value thereof, with intent to deprive him or her of such property or
services.

(Emphasis added)

The point that is missed when engaging in these word games, of course, is that
in common parlance, "theft" is used to mean any act that deprive others of
something. In this case, it is the rightful payment for the value provided by
the intellectual property that has been appropriated.

~~~
e12e
> The point that is missed when engaging in these word games, of course, is
> that in common parlance, "theft" is used to mean any act that deprive others
> of something.

Indeed, all your a,b,c) examples include " _with intent to deprive_ [the
owner] of such property or services". And it is a _necessary condition_ for it
to be considered theft. If not it is _not_ theft. It might be fraud, but that
is different from theft! In particular the sentencing for larceny and theft
have traditionally been harsher afaik almost everywhere. Most times, if you
simply refuse to pay for something, you can settle up by paying for it
(assuming no one else has been deprived of the same thing as a direct result
of you not paying) -- and that will be the end of it. Possibly with a fine in
extreme cases.

> In this case, it is the rightful payment for the value provided by the
> intellectual property that has been appropriated.

The what now? ;-)

~~~
throwawaykf
I'm not sure I get your point...are you saying there was no intent? Here's
what I'm trying to say: If you buy a copy, everyone involved in making it gets
paid. If you pirate it, they don't get paid. In other words, they were
_deprived_ of that payment. I'm sure the legal specifics are quite different,
but in common parlance, taking something without permission is theft, even if
it's not tangible property (e.g. "he stole my idea".)

~~~
digler999
That's bullshit. I pirate Springer books that someone else (whoever ripped
them had lawful access to them) paid for - no different than when I go to the
library and read Springer books that someone else (the library) paid for. The
bottom line is: __I'm not paying___. No authors or profiteering publishers are
deprived of _any_ payment.

They gouged me when I went to school and they continue to gouge students each
semester with their new editions that come out each semester of 400 year old
subjects (calculus). That's what they need to do to maximize profits. I'm
simply a 1-man corporation that needs to maximize my own profits and copying
my books happens to be an unpopular corporate decision.

~~~
drunkenmasta
amen

------
danso
If the publisher is cool with this (obviously, the authors are), I hope more
publishers continue to see this not as a zero-sum game. I guess I can count
myself as part of the lucky privileged class that will buy a book if I like
it, whether it's free or not, just to pay my respect to the author...and to
have a reliable copy of it (downloading a PDF from a url of store.free-
college.org/noleech1.php gives me the slight heebie-jeebies...what can I say,
I'm old!)

Recently I purchased a Kindle version of Gregory Brown's "Ruby Best
Practices"...even though I'm sure I bought it from Oreilly when it was
released in 2009 and even as Brown has been offering the book for free on his
own site since 2010 ([http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/posts/gregory/022-rbp-
now-...](http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/posts/gregory/022-rbp-now-
open.html))

I bought it again because as I've recently been googling for Ruby-specific
application methods, I constantly land on the text scraped from the free
book...that's worth giving up a few more bucks to the author. Brown also
started a paid newsletter for indepth Ruby discussion
(practicingruby.com)...it's the first paid newsletter I've ever, well, paid
for, and I'm happy to patronize the author. So, at least from people like me,
generous authors can always get a few bucks.

------
virtualritz
1st 202 pages:
[http://web.njit.edu/~wguo/Math447/Time%20Series%20Analysis%2...](http://web.njit.edu/~wguo/Math447/Time%20Series%20Analysis%20and%20Its%20Application%20with%20R%20examples.pdf)

------
hharrison
I'm taking a course with this book right now... and yes, I stole it at the
authors' recommendation. Textbooks are too expensive and I don't want to carry
it around anyway.

~~~
Zoomla
I think that it's legal to copy a book it if the author says it's ok to copy
it... but don't quote me on that.

~~~
runarberg
Only if the authors are also the copyright holders, ironically that is rarely
the case.

------
chris_wot
The original title was "Steal this book", in case anyone is wondering about
the strange comments below.

~~~
fekberg
Thank you.. I read it yesterday on my phone and when I got back today to
comment I couldn't find it.

------
yitchelle
It is interesting that the site is hosted at University of Pittsburgh. I
wonder if how their policies would look upon provocation.

------
mrcactu5
I can't steal it right now. LibGen is considered "questionable content" which
is against JP Morgan policy.

------
master-ruse-man
So, the authors want to piss off Springer?

~~~
pallandt
Depending on how they structured their deal, it may very well be possible that
Springer knows about this and is allowing it. There are quite a few other
Springer books available on authors' websites, for example The Elements of
Statistical Learning ([http://www-
stat.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/](http://www-
stat.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/))

~~~
dagw
Except the book isn't available on his website. His website has link to a
warez site with his book on it. So whatever deal he has with Springer it
doesn't seem to allow him to host the book on his site.

~~~
pallandt
He does host a simplified version of the book however, 'EZ version' as he
calls it. I'm sure the 'steal this' full version comment is just tongue in
cheek and/or sarcastic. Perhaps even a veiled prompt at Springer to send their
lawyers after LibGen, who knows, perhaps it hasn't happened as fast as he
wished for, thus the comment. Or maybe it just saves him some bandwidth if
people get it somewhere else :) So many possibilities.

------
anthonymonori
That's just... amazing!

