
Don't buy that textbook, download it for free - rglovejoy
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/technology/15link.html
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brooksbp
This is awesome. My Theory of Computation professor put his 150+ pg book
online for free. Great stuff... go academia!

~~~
kaens
Your professor is a good person. Got a link so we can check out his book and
perhaps send him a thank-you note (or donation)?

~~~
brooksbp
Yep. Sorry for the late reply. I don't believe the two original authors are
still here at CU. Though, you may contact Michael Main or Andrzej Ehrenfeucht
with any concerns. They both have been around a while and are closest to
theoretical CS.

It's a great read. Enjoy.

<http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~main/theory.pdf>

Facultly contact info can be found here:
<http://www.cs.colorado.edu/people/faculty/bytitle.html>

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andyn
The connexions site mentioned in the article is at <http://cnx.org/> \- I
found it recently while looking up some maths, looks like some good stuff in
there.

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netcan
This is an area that needs to be hit big. & Not just prescribed textbooks,
educational materials as a whole. The potential is enormous.

There is potential for $0 degrees. Maybe even free degrees. It's possible to
acquire all the knowledge contained within a University degree on the
'outside'. That's not new but it's getting easier. But a framework for
delivering the piece of paper, that would be something.

~~~
david927
This is a 'dangerous' idea because education is a big equalizer and a huge
boon to the meritocracy we all want. I've downloaded a lot of texts just for
my own interests.

One other aspect is that I think we'll be seeing a change in education, where
some people will be using the net to take classes their whole lives. There's
so much I want to learn, but I'm not interested in another degree. I just want
to know more.

~~~
netcan
That's brings up an interesting question. I have no doubt that the concept of
universities as gatekeepers needs to go & that the time is ripe. Actually,
they can stay on as gatekeepers but in the same way that American fraternities
& such do, without pretending it's about education standards.

The question is if this should be achieved via some sort of widely available,
low cost way of providing a widely recognised degree-like thing _or_ by
removing the need for a degree-like thing in altogether & replacing them with
specific certification (like CPA) whenever it is necessary (a small fraction
of those jobs employing mostly university graduates).

But either way we need accessible education.

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netcan
I actually don't understand how publishing houses still have control over this
industry. With recreational/consumer books, authors need the publishers
marketing machines. With textbooks,

\- Many can just prescribe to their own students. 'Introduction to Economics'
could sell 1k units a year in just one University.

\- Authors are presumably already known/respected/wrote the previous version.

\- Many academics prescribing the damn things freely admit that one doesn't
differ too much from the other.

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pchristensen
Richard Baraniuk of Connexions (mentioned in the article) talked at TED a
while ago:

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_baraniuk_on_open_...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_baraniuk_on_open_source_learning.html)

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byrneseyeview
My Intermediate Micro professor suggested McAfee's book as a great resource
that would tell us all we needed to know about economics, and do so quite
rigorously...

... the week after he told us we'd have to buy $200 worth of dead-tree
textbooks for the class.

~~~
vitaminj
I second that suggestion. I used McAfee's book last year for intermediate
micro, and I found it far better at explaining the concepts than our mandatory
textbook (by Waldman).

Waldman's book was certainly very colourful, but lacked some rigour IMO.

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edb
The biggest problem with this field is that most undergraduate-level teachers
really don't have the passion required to research free replacements for the
textbooks recommended to them by the publishers associated with the
university.

I think students in each faculty should rally together and really push this
point and work with the professors to find alternatives to 200$ textbooks..

The financial strain that textbook publishers place on students for profit
inhibits the learning that their textbooks are supposed to stimulate... That's
the big irony.

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showerst
Anyone else find it odd that they didn't at least mention the effect of piracy
on the market, especially after having a big piece on it a few weeks back?

~~~
kaens
Not really, considering that the majority of the textbook industry (that I've
seen) is a blatant sham.

~~~
blogimus
My wife is in school now and it seems that the publisher uses a unique ISBN
for each school the books are marketed to. This is to hamper inter-scholastic
used book trading. Her accounting bundle of one text and one workbook were
$190. Overall, she spent over $600 on textbooks we tried to find online and
couldn't. And its not just that the books are expensive, but they aren't that
great quality either. She is required to have the text and do problems from
them, but for one of her classes, is getting more value out of a little $10
reference book than the $125 text book.

~~~
sown
When I was in school some of the (mostly) foreign students got a nifty idea.

1.) Pool money together to buy the book. 2.) Photocopy it -- this is the
tricky part. nowadays we can scan it. The students would take turns scanning
in the book. photocopying it will cost $20 or so for a few hundred pages. 3.)
Return the book and disperse money back to people in step 1

~~~
bootload
_"... 1.) Pool money together to buy the book. 2.) Photocopy it -- this is the
tricky part. nowadays we can scan it ..."_

In most cases you didn't even have to buy the book, simply look it up in the
library or class copies. Simply borrow the book and copy it. It was laborious
and I didn't do this for all classes but some texts are simply not worth
purchasing for the value they give. Others are priceless.

~~~
bluelu
Reproduction rights?

This is like someone else borrowing your code, copying it and using it himself
or selling it to third parties without paying you.

~~~
bootload
_"... Reproduction rights? ... This is like someone else borrowing your code,
copying it and using it himself or selling it to third parties without paying
you. ..."_

In an academic context where I learn from books that are hard to get,
expensive and I only use small portions or where this is a secondary text? Now
if I was using ideas from textbooks to make serious money then I'd probably
purchase the book. Two completely different scenarios.

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streblo
I've been doing this since my freshman year. Now a senior, I've saved myself
thousands of dollars.

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liuliu
There is no digital version of my math textbook on Amazon Kindle...

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Mamun24
Competitive advantage: Porter Michael E The free press

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james_pdd
you are great

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albertcardona
One would say students never heard of the IRC undernet ...

~~~
rms
what channel?

~~~
albertcardona
In your email.

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quasimojo
i wish the big universities would kill these publishers

come on, harvard and stanford have like ten quadrillion dollar endowments and
they get muscled by a thirty person publishing house in ohio??

i know the profs want to get paid. just pay them a flat fee of like $100k from
their school's endowment and then release the book under CC license. the prof
makes out because they get their money up front. the students win because they
get cheaper books, quicker. the publishers die like vermin.

also some of these profs need a reality check. just like the musicians and
actors...they are not a breed apart...if they want to gouge, they will need to
deal with piracy.

~~~
razzmataz
most textbook authors don't make that much money from the text books they
write. It's more of a prestige thing. Unless you're Serge Lang or Thomas
Hungerford, I suppose...

