• ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This reminds me of when Weird Al told Canadian (or maybe Australian?) fans who wanted to watch his movie, “there’s Very Probably No way to do this. I know you probably have a TORRENT of questions, but I don’t have time to answer them right now.”

    • Aqarius@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Once in a while maybe you will feel the urge To break international copyright law By downloading MP3’s from file sharing sites Like Morpheus or Grokster or LimeWire or KaZaA

  • bblkargonaut@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I paid $1000 for books my first semester of college back in 2007. I felt so burnt and violated I never bought another textbook. I made it through the rest of undergrad, a masters, and a PhD in biochemistry by checking out books from the library, borrowing textbooks from friends, and going sailing. When I taught I made it a point to teach my students about all the ways they can avoid becoming a victim like myself.

  • Frank Ring@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I bought some textbooks for university.

    Ended up not using most of them.

    Most computers science students are used to computers, internet and StackOverflow.

    Not paper.

    • lost_faith@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Here is a PDF of the book you need for this course, you may not share it and the file will self destruct the day after finals. Thanks for the $150

      • Frank Ring@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The younger teachers were doing something similar to this. Teachers have to follow certain sets of rules to not get fired.

        It was mostly the oldest, gray-haired teachers that were requiring textbooks. Stuck in their old ways.

        • lost_faith@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          At least you OWN the text book and can reference it years later. That PDF scam was a real piss off

          • Frank Ring@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            That might work in other domains other than computer sciences.

            But from my experience, nobody cared about books and papers in computer science. Everyone is more comfortable with technology.

            You can easily Google or find things on the internet.

            • lhamil64@programming.dev
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              6 months ago

              The professor that taught my algorithms & data structures course said if we were going to keep one book it should be the one for that course. I followed that advice and it’s the one textbook I still have. It’s been 8 years since graduation and I haven’t opened it once. I tend to just read Wikipedia if I need to understand a particular algorithm or data structure.

              • Frank Ring@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Exactly lol. If I were you, I’d try to sell it.

                If it’s still relevant, you could also give it to younger students.

    • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Textbooks that are good references are great. Textbooks that are just another class and withhold the answers are garbage.

      • Frank Ring@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I never said there’s something wrong with paper books.

        I’m even reading one right now. Lord of Rings paper version.

        But for computer science students textbooks, it’s heavy, inconvenient and spacey.

        The internet or even PDFs are better.

        Why?

        It’s easier to do research, CTRL+F and copy/paste some programming code.

    • lightnegative@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I found this in my first and second year so I stopped buying them.

      Half the time it was just “recommended reading” and the book wasn’t even used in class.

      Yep, not gonna shell out $120 per book for “recommend reading”

      • BruceLee@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        Don’t you have university library? I did most of the recommend readings through my studies and found them all there (excepted for one). Ended up being a two reference books which prove themselves to be worth it.

  • DevCat@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The California Community College I went to allowed you to filter classes in the schedule by whether they offered ZTC - Zero Textbook Cost or OER - Open Educational Resource.

  • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    I love how he doesn’t even bother trying to consistently maintain the facade. It’s a *Chef’s Kiss

  • Agent641@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    In one of my uni courses, I found a free copy of the required textbook and posted a link to it on the forum in the LMS saying “Hey prof, is this the correct textbook?” By the time the prof responded and politely took my message down a week later, everyone had helped themselves to a copy.

  • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Sites like that saved me thousands getting my psych degree. God bless professors like this. Also the ones who were like, “the new edition of the book you need for this semester is $500, but you can get the previous edition for $5 at this site. Here’s copies of the pages that were changed.” or “I photocopied every page you need for this semester from the book for all of you.”

  • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    A professor of mine sent me a similar email when I said I was having trouble accessing some journals through the University library portal:

    “One should definitely not use Sci-hub, if you catch my drift.”

  • plz1@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Our profit margin demands you buy over-priced books from our shop

    College material monopolies should be illegal, just like all other monopolies. Want to give students an education in the real world? Let the free market determine textbook prices.

  • DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I once had a class where, day one, the professor said something like, “If you don’t want to buy the book, that’s fine with me. I can’t tell you where to find a copy, but maybe one of your classmates can.” Someone raised their hand and started rattling off a few useful websites.