The problem is that the average textbook sells a small run of copies, and doesn't benefit from economies of scale. Unfortunately, it seems that the professors and the publishers both like the current system, and the students have very little influence on the process.
There are some solutions, but the incentives don't seem to be in place to encourage them. The best seems to be reducing the overall number of textbooks, allowing each one to have a larger run and thus to better benefit from economies of scale (and be cheaper to buy at the same profit margin for the producers). But to achieve that we would have to stop letting professors choose their own books, and professors are not known to appreciate being herded.
"This is an engineering textbook, about 300 pages long, OK? Hard-bound. This costs, anybody guess? How much would it cost in a bookstore? OK, this cost $22 to the students. Why does it cost $22? Because it's published on-demand, and it's developed from this repository of open material. If this book was to be published by a regular publisher, it would cost at least $122 dollars."
So it's a bit more complex than that. It may be "economy of scale" in that a professor isn't going to take the time to write a solid textbook without being able to make back at least his expenses. But if we had some way for people to collaborate more easily and cheaply to write a textbook...
"The problem is that the average textbook sells a small run of copies, and doesn't benefit from economies of scale"
WHAT??? for example, stewart's calculus book has been used for twenty+ years all over the english speaking world. you find me a ny times bestseller that has had that kind of run
This is asking for speculative work on an awe-inspiring scale, and I find it brazenness to be a bit hard to swallow. Arrington wants other people to build something he wants, and will not pay them for it. Instead, he is offering a promise to eventually open source the design specs.
Regardless of whether or not this project ever amounts to anything, and I don't believe it will without an individual at the epicenter with the talent and taste to make final decisions on all details, this is a scam for those who are contributing to it. I hate spec work posing itself as generosity, and the humanitarian effort this most closely resembles is King Leopold in the Congo.
Um. I wish I had an excuse. For some reason it just clicked and I never thought about it, although it is clearly and irrefutably wrong. Thanks for pointing that out, its been fixed (although the cached copy may take a bit to update).
Actually, it works in Opera, Safari, Firefox and in Internet Explorer (using the excanvas). Its still evolving a bit, and I hope to add more statistical analysis to it, but its a bit fun.
I'd pretty much guarantee that its real purpose is to serve as a simple but pleasant portfolio piece for a designer or developer, and that purpose isn't defeated by it being copyable.
But, I think the point of the service is that only one person can read it not that it can only be read once. They could prevent easy copying by using Flash, etc, but it that would be cruel, unusual (well, it should be usual), and wouldn't improve their offering.
I think the key in my statement was easy copying. The inability to copy and paste clearly frustrates people, seeing as its the number one complaint against Scribd. But thanks for the sarcasm. ;)
First, the first amendment has absolutely no relevance here, since it is a restriction being placed on government, not on individuals. There is a chronic habit to misinterpret this as "I can say what I want, wherever I want, whenever, however", which is an interesting opinion, but one with no correlation with the legal definition. The 1st isn't intended to--and doesn't--defend the imagined right to express your views on other people's servers.
Next, your real life examples are a bit sensationalist. The difference is that Saddam was killing people for expressing opinions, whereas we want to downvote poorly expressed and undefended opinions. A more apt comparison would be the university setting, where challenging opinions will be accepted on the merits of their presenter's ability to defend them. The same applies to Galileo, who was persecuted for his theories (not, note opinions). I believe that we'd be overjoyed to have a Galileo posting here, since he would link to his mathematics and let us examine the feasibility of his theories for ourselves.
Finally, to address the meat of your argument against downvoting, I think you have misdiagnosed why people are downvoted. I rarely see people downvoted for their opinions, but frequently see people downvoted for failing to effectively defend or explain their opinions. Since we are trying to foster discussion, the actual opinion is usually less important than explaining how they have arrived at their opinion, and why their opinion is viable. Simply expressing an opinion is noise in a conversation often boils down to noise, and opinions on their own won't feed the starving mind: the meat of the argument lies in explaining opinions.
Thus, I believe that the downvote allows the community to exert a stronger preference for comments that add value. If you want to avoid being downvoted, express you opinion and then defend it.
"Simply expressing an opinion is noise in a conversation often boils down to noise, and opinions on their own won't feed the starving mind: the meat of the argument lies in explaining opinions." - willarson
To play devil's advocate here (because I happen to agree with your comment on the whole), the argument could be made that a downvote (without attribution or explanation) is just this sort of noise.
If all they have is nonsense, then they shouldn't be able to downvote, right? What is the argument here, I don't want other people to see it but I can't say why?
If all they have is nonsense, then they shouldn't be able to downvote, right?
If all they have is nonsense, then they shouldn't be able to post a comment, right?
The question isn't, "Should someone be allowed to be stupid." It's "Should we give them an outlet for their disagreement that causes less disruption to the conversation?"
We can't solve stupidity. But, we can make it have less impact. I don't know that downvotes help prevent stupidity, or help reduce the impact of stupidity...but I think it does.
Of course, you're assuming that the post being downvoted or commented on has merit by virtue of someone having taken time to write it. I'm assuming that everybody (including me) says stupid stuff all the time, and a downvote is a low-friction, low-amplitude means of saying "I think this is stupid". It doesn't censor anyone, and it doesn't prevent people from having a discourse with that person if they think it's worth their time.
That's all I'm saying. (Though I could be having a stupid moment right now.)
I think "is expected to generate" is much more appropriate than "generating" since it doesn't exist yet. I would have been suitably more interested if it was real instead of a prediction.
The person who runs that site is top notch at creating interesting or controversial headlines, but usually delivers a rant at best or--in this case--nothing at all. As best I can follow, this article's outline is this:
1. He met a presumably incompetent coder before the first bubble, who was possibly arrogant.
2. He previously complained about a incompetent coder in South America.
3. He has also met a competent coder in South America.
4. That competent coder may or may not have horses, but he definitely might have them, and he probably has a nice house as well.
5. He's pretty sure that people like the guy who is competent.
6. Wages don't correlate with quality.
I guess what gets me about his articles, is they are usually about something I'd like to know more about, and he presents this veneer of of authority, but always skims over the point of his argument where one might reasonably expect him to defend his position beyond simply stating it as a solemn truth.
"... I guess what gets me about his articles, is they are usually about something I'd like to know more about, and he presents this veneer of of authority, but always skims over the point of his argument where one might reasonably expect him to defend his position beyond simply stating it as a solemn truth. ..."
The question I keep thinking of is why? He is the founding editor of GameDev and Software developer mags. So you would assume he has some idea of writing. I'll keep that in mind next time I (think) of posting one.
Its actually not that bad, but it really depends on your browser. I've been throwing together (meaning not at all finished) a tower defense game using it (http://www.willarson.com/code/processing/ptd.html), and it plays amazingly quickly on the current release version of Safari, and plays just slightly slower (but still perfectly, just a different in how quickly frames are processed) in the beta 5 of FireFox 3. On the other hand, in the release version of Camino it runs horrifically.
There are a ton of issues with it, in particular not working on IE at all, some features needing beta browsers, etc, but I don't think that speed is going to be one of the more important limiting factors. I imagine the demo you looked at was doing something pretty crazy, either visually or in the code ;)
There are some solutions, but the incentives don't seem to be in place to encourage them. The best seems to be reducing the overall number of textbooks, allowing each one to have a larger run and thus to better benefit from economies of scale (and be cheaper to buy at the same profit margin for the producers). But to achieve that we would have to stop letting professors choose their own books, and professors are not known to appreciate being herded.