.

ldent42

PJ_Soul said:

HesCalledDyer said:

PJ_Soul said:

ldent42 said:

Textbooks. I once had a teacher put a book HE WROTE on the "required materials". That shit should be illegal.

Whoa whoa whoa. I think you're looking at this wrong. Don't you want the professor who is teaching the material to be the one who wrote the material? That is absolutely ideal! It means that your professor is the #1 expert on what he's teaching you. I can assure you that the textbook was peer reviewed and published by a publisher because of its academic merit, and the university/academic department approved whatever texts are used in their courses. It's not like the prof self-publishes his textbooks and sells them out of the trunk of his car or on Amazon. And FYI, I am the operations manager at a university press, so I can tell you with 100% certainty that the professor is not making very much money at all on that. We publish several textbooks that are written by the professors of the courses the texts are used in, and they never make more than 8% of the book sales in royalties. That's nothing. I think for our biggest selling textbook last year, with the professor getting 8% of the sales revenue, he ended up with less than $800 for the whole year. The biggest annual royalties cheque I have ever cut for a professor who was teaching his own book was around $2500.

Eh, I dunno. I had a professor that wrote a textbook. Luckily, I took the class with a different professor. The book was great! But when I had that prof for a couple different classes later on, he was terrible!!

Oh, sorry, to be clear, just because a professor wrote a great book it doesn't mean he's a great teacher. I should have said that a textbook written and taught by a good professor who can also teach is ideal (but if he isn't a good teacher, it's still best to have a good textbook, and if that prof with no teaching skills has written that text, there is no reason for him not to use it... imagine how bad he or she might be if they were trying to teach someone else's text!).
But my main point is that looking at a text written by the prof as some kind of shady financial deal set up by the prof is just mistaken thinking. That's not how it works.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. But that's okay. I'm not talking about a textbook. I know I said textbook but I talk stupid. It's published by university press so I don't know how you'd call it. Academic book or whatever. And if you're being serious about peer review stuff then ok, but I have to tell you it's not what you think. It's a philosophy class, not like biology or something where there's like right and wrong answers and stuff isn't open to interpretation. More than that it's a foundations philosophy class focusing on texts from Ancient Greece. If the man is an expert then good for him but he ain't the only one. It was one of two books that was required to purchase. Only a couple chapters were used. Everything else was available for free. Out of 5-6 classes in the Philosophy dept in that school that I took there was only one other class that required a textbook (and it was a more modern class, philosophy of science, so it made sense. And that was a textbook textbook. Not just a book.)

I don't work in publishing but I know that the writers of books like that, particularly academic stuff don't get paid the big bucks. What I find shady is that the man is adding his book to a required purchase for like 150 people a year when he's only using two chapters. He owns that material, he could give it to everyone for free and encourage they buy his book cuz it'll be useful for them later. We're talking about source material that is thousands of years old. That shit has been covered already. Most of my "textbooks" I found at the thriftstore randomly and just picked them up just in case. Then when chapter's get assigned from the Republic boom! I've got my 30 year old used $1.50 ready.

And it's not like he only wrote one book and wants to use it the man published that shit in the ninetys and revises it every other year. I learned that while looking for the stupid book online.

Wobbie

over the counter medicine, in general...most of it doesn't do shit and it's absurdly expensive.

when I get sick, I just gut it out.

if they made something for a hangover that worked, I'd pay any price. but they don't...so I take some kirkland ibuprofen that doesn't do anything but is cheap.

whispering hands

imalive said:

over the counter medicine, in general...most of it doesn't do shit and it's absurdly expensive.

when I get sick, I just gut it out.

if they made something for a hangover that worked, I'd pay any price. but they don't...so I take some kirkland ibuprofen that doesn't do anything but is cheap.

Menudo is great for hangovers. And cheap.

whispering hands

And I don't mean the boy band from the 80's.

ldent42

whispering hands said:

And I don't mean the boy band from the 80's.

Literally the first thing I thought of.

PJ_Soul

ldent42 said:

PJ_Soul said:

HesCalledDyer said:

PJ_Soul said:

ldent42 said:

Textbooks. I once had a teacher put a book HE WROTE on the "required materials". That shit should be illegal.

Whoa whoa whoa. I think you're looking at this wrong. Don't you want the professor who is teaching the material to be the one who wrote the material? That is absolutely ideal! It means that your professor is the #1 expert on what he's teaching you. I can assure you that the textbook was peer reviewed and published by a publisher because of its academic merit, and the university/academic department approved whatever texts are used in their courses. It's not like the prof self-publishes his textbooks and sells them out of the trunk of his car or on Amazon. And FYI, I am the operations manager at a university press, so I can tell you with 100% certainty that the professor is not making very much money at all on that. We publish several textbooks that are written by the professors of the courses the texts are used in, and they never make more than 8% of the book sales in royalties. That's nothing. I think for our biggest selling textbook last year, with the professor getting 8% of the sales revenue, he ended up with less than $800 for the whole year. The biggest annual royalties cheque I have ever cut for a professor who was teaching his own book was around $2500.

Eh, I dunno. I had a professor that wrote a textbook. Luckily, I took the class with a different professor. The book was great! But when I had that prof for a couple different classes later on, he was terrible!!

Oh, sorry, to be clear, just because a professor wrote a great book it doesn't mean he's a great teacher. I should have said that a textbook written and taught by a good professor who can also teach is ideal (but if he isn't a good teacher, it's still best to have a good textbook, and if that prof with no teaching skills has written that text, there is no reason for him not to use it... imagine how bad he or she might be if they were trying to teach someone else's text!).
But my main point is that looking at a text written by the prof as some kind of shady financial deal set up by the prof is just mistaken thinking. That's not how it works.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. But that's okay. I'm not talking about a textbook. I know I said textbook but I talk stupid. It's published by university press so I don't know how you'd call it. Academic book or whatever. And if you're being serious about peer review stuff then ok, but I have to tell you it's not what you think. It's a philosophy class, not like biology or something where there's like right and wrong answers and stuff isn't open to interpretation. More than that it's a foundations philosophy class focusing on texts from Ancient Greece. If the man is an expert then good for him but he ain't the only one. It was one of two books that was required to purchase. Only a couple chapters were used. Everything else was available for free. Out of 5-6 classes in the Philosophy dept in that school that I took there was only one other class that required a textbook (and it was a more modern class, philosophy of science, so it made sense. And that was a textbook textbook. Not just a book.)

I don't work in publishing but I know that the writers of books like that, particularly academic stuff don't get paid the big bucks. What I find shady is that the man is adding his book to a required purchase for like 150 people a year when he's only using two chapters. He owns that material, he could give it to everyone for free and encourage they buy his book cuz it'll be useful for them later. We're talking about source material that is thousands of years old. That shit has been covered already. Most of my "textbooks" I found at the thriftstore randomly and just picked them up just in case. Then when chapter's get assigned from the Republic boom! I've got my 30 year old used $1.50 ready.

And it's not like he only wrote one book and wants to use it the man published that shit in the ninetys and revises it every other year. I learned that while looking for the stupid book online.

I was being serious, yes (not sure what made you wonder if I was being sarcastic, lol!). I work at a university press so know exactly what really happens. It doesn't matter what subject it is. All textbooks (not sure what your distinction about textbooks vs academic books?? They're the same thing, no? Are you just talking about some photocopied pages that are stapled together then?? If so, that is a whole different thing. FYI, a University Press is generally an extremely reputable publishing house. So maybe you're confusing a University Press with a university's reprographics department that just fulfills printing orders??) are pretty much done the same way. They are peer reviewed. If it's a biology text it would be peer reviewed by biologists. If it were a philosophy text it would be peer reviewed by philosophers/other philosophy professors. Subjective material is still peer reviewed, so that other experts in the field can evaluate that subjective material and tell the publisher if they think it is well presented and reasonable, or flawed and wrong, or presented poorly.

If your professor's book happened to be the only one that contained the material the prof wanted to teach (which is perfectly possible), then it makes total sense that he would use his own textbook. However, if you mean that he literally had written a textbook that was just filled with old source material and no original work (so an Anthology), and only used 1 or 2 chapters from that, then yes, that is a ripoff, but not really, because it would be pretty silly of any student to actually pay for it..... If he used the whole anthology, or at least a lot of it, and the anthology contained his own work as well, i.e. interpretations, discussion points, etc, and I think you said it did, it seems perfectly reasonable.

As for owning that material in the textbook... actually, he probably doesn't. Most textbook contracts between the author and the press would give copyright to the publisher alone, not the author. If he wanted to hand out that stuff to his class for free, then he would have to just print out the source material indepent from the textbook... but again, surely there was material in that textbook besides the old and easily accessible source material that has no copyright on it??? If not, then whatever publishing house that published that book should be ashamed of itself.

Sorry.... this is a long talk about the fine details of textbook publishing, which I'm sure is very boring for everyone.

ldent42

Well have to agree to disagree. It's a grimey move to make your students buy the book you wrote.

whispering hands

ldent42 said:

Well have to agree to disagree. It's a grimey move to make your students buy the book you wrote.

I definitely agree with you! Especially if there is another text out there in the same subject, for a cheaper price, which was the case in my English class.

whispering hands

Although I
Also see PJ_Soul's point in royalties. I get a whopping .01 cent for every copy of my
Livestock Integrations; husbandry, breeding, and the ecological affect. Book that's sold or used at OKU's A&M campus. So far in the last ten years.. I've made 72 dollars and some odd cents! So she is right in the fact they don't make much.. At ALL! But still shady and not right in
My opinion.

Longueuil

RKCNDY said:

I hate buying water...I'm perfectly fine bringing my own, but some venues/fairs won't let you bring your own, you have to buy it from them. They jack up the prices more than soda sometimes too...and you wonder why people are fat?

That's why I always have a soft bottle in my purse. Most venues will check your bag, won't find it and you can fill it inside. Ecological and economical.


I can't stand buying financial services or insurance. Even with all my will, I don't understand much of it. Also, I hate shopping for a new car.

whispering hands

Oh and now that has been revised?? And new Authorshave written in on it?? I get even less! One year I got a check
For .05!! Five CENTS! I never laughed so hard!!

PJ_Soul

ldent42 said:

Well have to agree to disagree. It's a grimey move to make your students buy the book you wrote.

So if your prof was Stephen Hawking and he was teaching an Astrophysics Theory course or something and used "A Brief History of Time" as one of the textbooks, you would think he's being grimey?
Sorry, but it makes no sense for a prof to avoid using a textbook that he wrote about the very subject he's teaching.

F Me In The Brain

imalive said:

over the counter medicine, in general...most of it doesn't do shit and it's absurdly expensive.

when I get sick, I just gut it out.

if they made something for a hangover that worked, I'd pay any price. but they don't...so I take some kirkland ibuprofen that doesn't do anything but is cheap.

They have those guys that will come to you in Vegas and put in an IV. My Dr buddy said this was a surefire way to kill hangovers but we have never done it.
(Really bad idea was just planted in my brain. F!)

I cant stand buying holiday decorations. Or Duvets. I dont technically buy them but I do pay for them. Both a total fucking waste of money.

edit on the holiday decorations -- I am talking about the thanksgiving matching plates and napkins or the easter egg/bunny things to hang on our windows. Just let me put lights all over shit @ Christmas time and call it good!

PJ_Soul

whispering hands said:

ldent42 said:

Well have to agree to disagree. It's a grimey move to make your students buy the book you wrote.

I definitely agree with you! Especially if there is another text out there in the same subject, for a cheaper price, which was the case in my English class.

What if the prof isn't as familiar with that textbook, or it doesn't cover all of the areas that the prof designed the course around? FYI, courses are designed around textbooks, but textbooks are also often designed around courses. A prof using his own textbook for the course very likely actually wrote the textbook specifically for that course (or designed both concurrently) so that the reading material would be best suited to what he's teaching the students. Getting an expert in a field to use someone else's text for no other reason than to make the students feel like he isn't profiting off of it would be a disservice to education in many cases (but as mentioned, doing this CAN be the wrong thing. Like if it's a required textbook by the prof, and he only uses one chapter in a $100+ textbook? That is super fucking slimy).

ldent42

PJ_Soul said:

ldent42 said:

Well have to agree to disagree. It's a grimey move to make your students buy the book you wrote.

So if your prof was Stephen Hawking and he was teaching an Astrophysics Theory course or something and used "A Brief History of Time" as one of the textbooks, you would think he's being grimey?
Sorry, but it makes no sense for a prof to avoid using a textbook that he wrote about the very subject he's teaching.

Look I'm sill on the agree to disagree bandwagon but that analogy you made completely ignores the point I made earlier. He's not stephen fucking hawking, he's a nobody teaching at a public school, and he's not teaching a specialized field like astrophysics, he's teaching a fucking intro philosophy course. The materials have been studies for thousands of years there's no breakthroughs being made in shit Socrates said.
Stephen hawking making kids buy his book for class, arguably grimey. He's famous. He can afford to give it for free. Stephen hawking wanting to teach class from the book he wrote, understandable since he's like the top guy of his field. Not that know anything about it but I get the impression he's kind of a big deal.
Again I'll repeat, it's out of place with what the rest of the department does. The majority of materials in the department are distributed for free, copies from books made available in pdf packets. The exception bring the modern, specialized stuff, like SCIENCE and biomedical ethics.

Ok? We clear? Agree to disagree. Homie is grimey. Stephen hawking ain't got NOTHING to do with what I'm talking about. We're not talking about a guy like Cornell west or a school like NYU. It's different. I'm pretty sure WH's English teacher was a similar scenario.

PJfanwillneverleave1

F Me In The Brain said:

imalive said:

I cant stand buying holiday decorations. Or Duvets. I dont technically buy them but I do pay for them. Both a total fucking waste of money.

edit on the holiday decorations -- I am talking about the thanksgiving matching plates and napkins or the easter egg/bunny things to hang on our windows. Just let me put lights all over shit @ Christmas time and call it good!

About your Duvet....Happy wife - Happy life!

I can't stand buying all those holiday knick knacks either. All I think is while I'm paying for them is "Where the hell is all this shit going to go when it's time to pack it"?

edit - that last part sure reads different after you type it

RKCNDY

F Me In The Brain said:

They have those guys that will come to you in Vegas and put in an IV. My Dr buddy said this was a surefire way to kill hangovers but we have never done it.
(Really bad idea was just planted in my brain. F!)

I cant stand buying holiday decorations. Or Duvets. I dont technically buy them but I do pay for them. Both a total fucking waste of money.

edit on the holiday decorations -- I am talking about the thanksgiving matching plates and napkins or the easter egg/bunny things to hang on our windows. Just let me put lights all over shit @ Christmas time and call it good!

*Vitamin B12 IV...works faster than taking an oral Multi Vitamin B pill. I would probably suggest taking one before drinking, after drinking, and in the morning, with lots of water.

*fuck holiday decorations, I hate all that stuff (ok, some Halloween stuff is cool), but I don't decorate for any holiday

*duvets actually save you from washing that big huge heavy comforter...well, that's how they're supposed to be used. I just make my own...buy 2 flat sheets in whatever size your comforter is (I like Ross...nice and cheap) sew up on 3 sides, maybe add buttons or ties on the bottom-tah-dah.

ldent42

I need a new comforter. I hate buying sheets too. You have to buy the whole set but I don't use the top sheet. Waste of fabric.

RKCNDY

ldent42 said:

I need a new comforter. I hate buying sheets too. You have to buy the whole set but I don't use the top sheet. Waste of fabric.

if you live near a Ross store, they sell the sheets separately...you can buy just a fitted sheet. I never use the flat sheet either-unless I'm making a duvet cover.

ldent42

Never heard of it. Must not be around here.

Wobbie

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

F Me In The Brain said:

imalive said:

I cant stand buying holiday decorations. Or Duvets. I dont technically buy them but I do pay for them. Both a total fucking waste of money.

edit on the holiday decorations -- I am talking about the thanksgiving matching plates and napkins or the easter egg/bunny things to hang on our windows. Just let me put lights all over shit @ Christmas time and call it good!

About your Duvet....Happy wife - Happy life!

I can't stand buying all those holiday knick knacks either. All I think is while I'm paying for them is "Where the hell is all this shit going to go when it's time to pack it"?

edit - that last part sure reads different after you type it

nobody's packing my shit!

Wobbie

F Me In The Brain said:

imalive said:

over the counter medicine, in general...most of it doesn't do shit and it's absurdly expensive.

when I get sick, I just gut it out.

if they made something for a hangover that worked, I'd pay any price. but they don't...so I take some kirkland ibuprofen that doesn't do anything but is cheap.

They have those guys that will come to you in Vegas and put in an IV. My Dr buddy said this was a surefire way to kill hangovers but we have never done it.
(Really bad idea was just planted in my brain. F!)

"911; what is the nature of your emergency?"

"Bad hangover; please hurry."

RKCNDY

ldent42 said:

Never heard of it. Must not be around here.

oh...closest one is Wilkes-Barre.

deadendp

ldent42 said:

RKCNDY said:

cdysinge said:

RKCNDY said:

cdysinge said:

Last-12-Exit said:

Bedroom sets are ridiculous. I had to buy just a bed a few years ago and was floored. Furniture in general is over priced.

Furniture is the most marked up retail item on the planet along with Diamonds. Its insane how they can mark something up that high and get away with it.

You're supposed to dicker with those people on that stuff...

Dicker....... Should this be moved to the 21 or over degenerate thread?

You don't like me talking about how I dicker with the jewelery guy? I cont wait to dicker with the mattress guy...

Dicker? You mean haggle?
I've been "going to" buy a mattress for the past year. I haven't done cuz the idea of dealing with them makes me cringe. I had a Marketing teacher explain to us once that the mattress manufacturers only make x number type of mattresses. Then every single store, Sleepys, Macys, whatever, gets "their" version of it, which is sold under the name unique for them so it cannot be price matched at other stores. And the only difference in the mattress is like the color of the stitching, IF even that. But because it has a different name, you can't price shop it.

I thought of a new one: Textbooks. I once had a teacher put a book HE WROTE on the "required materials". That shit should be illegal.

Professor Espenscheid and Seven Ideas That Shook the Universe at Kent State was the same way! He wrote that book. My class was in a planetarium. There was a creepy old guy that kept hitting on me in a rapist kind of way, so I cut class a lot. I did some extra credit and surprisingly, pulled through with a B.

ldent42

RKCNDY said:

ldent42 said:

Never heard of it. Must not be around here.

oh...closest one is Wilkes-Barre.

Never heard of that either

PJSiren

ldent42 said:

RKCNDY said:

ldent42 said:

Never heard of it. Must not be around here.

oh...closest one is Wilkes-Barre.

Never heard of that either

There is no Ross For Less in NYC??? Are you kidding me??? A lot of stores have started selling sheets seperately though...you should look around...

My hubby feels the same way about top sheets as you, but I make him keep it on the bed, because I love it...lol

whispering hands

ldent42 said:

PJ_Soul said:

ldent42 said:

Well have to agree to disagree. It's a grimey move to make your students buy the book you wrote.

So if your prof was Stephen Hawking and he was teaching an Astrophysics Theory course or something and used "A Brief History of Time" as one of the textbooks, you would think he's being grimey?
Sorry, but it makes no sense for a prof to avoid using a textbook that he wrote about the very subject he's teaching.

Look I'm sill on the agree to disagree bandwagon but that analogy you made completely ignores the point I made earlier. He's not stephen fucking hawking, he's a nobody teaching at a public school, and he's not teaching a specialized field like astrophysics, he's teaching a fucking intro philosophy course. The materials have been studies for thousands of years there's no breakthroughs being made in shit Socrates said.
Stephen hawking making kids buy his book for class, arguably grimey. He's famous. He can afford to give it for free. Stephen hawking wanting to teach class from the book he wrote, understandable since he's like the top guy of his field. Not that know anything about it but I get the impression he's kind of a big deal.
Again I'll repeat, it's out of place with what the rest of the department does. The majority of materials in the department are distributed for free, copies from books made available in pdf packets. The exception bring the modern, specialized stuff, like SCIENCE and biomedical ethics.

Ok? We clear? Agree to disagree. Homie is grimey. Stephen hawking ain't got NOTHING to do with what I'm talking about. We're not talking about a guy like Cornell west or a school like NYU. It's different. I'm pretty sure WH's English teacher was a similar scenario.

I think I took it personally because he only uses a portion of the book.. Which was his take on early Semantic Prose. So I spent 85 dollars for one chapter to be covered.. ( the shortest chapter in the book by the way!)

northerndragon

Glasses - I hate the damn things, barely wear them, they fog in winter, slide down your nose in summer, you can't wear sunglasses with them. Yet I must spend way too much time, money and energy investing in a pair because you just can't wear contacts 24/7 forever.

ldent42

northerndragon said:

Glasses - I hate the damn things, barely wear them, they fog in winter, slide down your nose in summer, you can't wear sunglasses with them. Yet I must spend way too much time, money and energy investing in a pair because you just can't wear contacts 24/7 forever.

I recommend transitions. I have a friend who works as an optician so my eyewear buying experience isn't gonna be typical, but I decided I wanted an "extra" pair of glasses as transitions because I didn't want to carry my glasses & my sunglasses while traveling. I had no intention of wearing them beyond my trip because I didn't the idea of the glass changing on its own where I have no control over it. Well over a year later and it's the only pair of glasses I wear. The Ray bans perception sunglasses and the Ralph Lauren regular glasses are languishing in a drawer while I prance around wearing my no name transitions every day. :-)

oceaninmyeyes

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

Air for tires.

Yes! OMG Yes!