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altivoNot, in my opinion, to be confused with cupidity. Or stupidity.
Anyway, found some suitable cards in my stash of such things and Gary got one from me and one from the pets. Made him apple pancakes for breakfast and also took him out for dinner. Not overly fancy, but a place we like. He gave me two little plush huskies, knowing full well that they will end up "staring" at him in bed like the other two I already had.
Proofed his proposal for a research paper, and made some changes to vocabulary before he submitted it. (He spent too many years working for a yuppie consulting firm and sometimes needs to have his verbiage reined in, so he gets to the point sooner.)
He's probably on an acceptable track, since he's proposing a library usage study with live data that I will extract for him. He wrote to seven public library directors for permission to use their data, and three have granted him that so far, which is enough to work with even though he'd like a couple more. All three so far have expressed interest in his results and asked for a copy of the final paper. So he has real world data and a real world audience interested in his results, which meets several of the requirements for this project. (It's all statistical stuff, involving projecting results from a sample and comparing the projection to the actual results for the entire universe of data.)
Pulled sample files for him while doing my normal daily work, as I could just submit the requests and let them run in the background. So he should be all set for this class.
On another subject, I had occasion to compare the Amazon price for a hardcover novel and the price for a Kindle edition of same. I'm disgusted. The real hardcover book is $13.23 (with free shipping if you order at least $25 at once, so two books will do that) and the Kindle electronic edition is $12.99. Someone (I assume the publisher) is getting by with much lower production costs and taking a much higher profit. I doubt that the author is getting a higher royalty for the ebook copy than for the printed copy. This is neither fair nor an advance in the economics of publishing. Yet publishers are still resisting the ebook trend, dragging their feet and yelling that it will bankrupt them. Bah humbug.
Anyway, found some suitable cards in my stash of such things and Gary got one from me and one from the pets. Made him apple pancakes for breakfast and also took him out for dinner. Not overly fancy, but a place we like. He gave me two little plush huskies, knowing full well that they will end up "staring" at him in bed like the other two I already had.
Proofed his proposal for a research paper, and made some changes to vocabulary before he submitted it. (He spent too many years working for a yuppie consulting firm and sometimes needs to have his verbiage reined in, so he gets to the point sooner.)
He's probably on an acceptable track, since he's proposing a library usage study with live data that I will extract for him. He wrote to seven public library directors for permission to use their data, and three have granted him that so far, which is enough to work with even though he'd like a couple more. All three so far have expressed interest in his results and asked for a copy of the final paper. So he has real world data and a real world audience interested in his results, which meets several of the requirements for this project. (It's all statistical stuff, involving projecting results from a sample and comparing the projection to the actual results for the entire universe of data.)
Pulled sample files for him while doing my normal daily work, as I could just submit the requests and let them run in the background. So he should be all set for this class.
On another subject, I had occasion to compare the Amazon price for a hardcover novel and the price for a Kindle edition of same. I'm disgusted. The real hardcover book is $13.23 (with free shipping if you order at least $25 at once, so two books will do that) and the Kindle electronic edition is $12.99. Someone (I assume the publisher) is getting by with much lower production costs and taking a much higher profit. I doubt that the author is getting a higher royalty for the ebook copy than for the printed copy. This is neither fair nor an advance in the economics of publishing. Yet publishers are still resisting the ebook trend, dragging their feet and yelling that it will bankrupt them. Bah humbug.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-15 08:30 am (UTC)Gary's research sounds interesting, and it sounds like it has a very useful real-world use. When you say "verbiage reined in", does it mean cutting down on the "buzzwords"? :) I must say his project sounds like it is going to be a success.
On the subject of Kindle and real books, it is no real surprise the "virtual" copy which has zero manufacturing (copying a file) cost is only marginally cheaper. I find this quite annoying with many other things as well, such as music, movies and games. The physical disc is only marginally more expensive than the virtual item, which frustrates me to no end. Sadly this has reflected on the physical copies, too, games no longer have manuals, movies and music rarely have any inserts either. And I won't even get started with DRM.
It is almost as if large media companies are trying to force people to go virtual, and still with same price as for the physical item. This only increases their profit margin, and leaves us with something that can just poof away in an instant when the DRM-server shuts down. Then they can "sell" it again.
I like a good book sometimes, too, but I have been VERY lazy lately. :/
no subject
Date: 2012-02-15 03:47 pm (UTC)Yes, I think the publishing corporations are frying themselves in their own lard, just as the music and movie companies have already been doing for years now. What angers me, as a writer, is the fact that the authors are still not getting a fair deal either way. Of that $13 hardcover book, the author is lucky to get five cents. Amazon gets probably $5 and the publisher keeps all the rest. The electronic copy is the same way, though the publisher's costs are even smaller so their profit per copy is higher. The author still gets five cents.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-15 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-15 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-15 06:43 pm (UTC)Personally, I still rather like paper and ink, but I can see I'll have to find some e-book reading mechanism I can cope with sooner or later.
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Date: 2012-02-15 06:53 pm (UTC)Of course, there are lots of downloadable application programs that will let you read e-books on a computer. And there are lots of free e-books available for download. So that's one way to get your paws wet without dropping a lot of cash. If you like what's available, then shop for a reader.
Oh, and do check out smashwords.com because there's a lot of good stuff there for free or very inexpensively, and the authors get the big cut of the pricing. Try MCAHogarth if you didn't already know her.