• @[email protected]
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    24 days ago

    I have had uni professors sign books to make sure people actually bought new books and not used ones (he wrote them); unfortunately for him i had access to toluene to get pen ink off; did the same to all of my peers; Fuck those kind of professors

      • @[email protected]
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        24 days ago

        He threatened you to either buy a new book or he would make your uni career hell, one of my mates did it, at the last exam he sent him back 5 times, the last time he went to take the exam the coordiator said “what else have you got to ask to him; he told you everything in your course; [insert name] give me the paper” he signed the paper and sent him off; the prof. Still gave him only 60/100.

        I still want to slap that piece of shit.

        After that i taught other people in the uni to do that; he tried to mitigate by writing over the printed title of the book; hoping that any tampering would be evident; toluene didn’t touch the toner, so it didn’t work

        Edit: grammar mistake (thanks mac)

        • @[email protected]
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          24 days ago

          Sounds like a pos.

          Also that sounds very illegal, no complaints have been filed or anything?

          • @[email protected]
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            9124 days ago

            Here in italy no one gives a quater of a fuck about that kind of shit. Good thing is that the same can be said when after the last exams he always needs to call a tow truck since he won’t have tires, not even cameras were able to stop them, and i’m quite sure other professors turn a blind eye to them since they also hate him.

        • @[email protected]
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          24 days ago

          hi 👋

          just fyi:
          “teach” is one of those words in English that has a different suffix for it’s past-tense: it is “taught”.
          Eg. “They taught me to sew.”
          “teached” is improper.

          Note: not to be confused with “taut” which is pronounced the same.

          :)

          • @[email protected]
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            24 days ago

            I had originally wrote taught but i confused it with “pulling something tight” so i went with what would get the point across even if it was wrong.

            Edit: fixed it now

            • @[email protected]
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              824 days ago

              No judgment, I think its interesting the little high-stakes decisions we make like this though.

              “Oh no which spelling is it? Is there time to search it up? Oh no my train of thought is fading! Send send send!”

          • @[email protected]
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            1524 days ago

            Thank you for pointing out a mistake in a very polite way while being informative. You deserve an applesauce for making a better internet 👏.

        • @[email protected]
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          1124 days ago

          Do Italian professors know their students’ names? Over here, two countries to the North, no professor knows anything about their students.

          • @[email protected]
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            1124 days ago

            If you mean Germany: Depends. At my smaller university quite a few professors knew my name and others had something I would consider a friendship.

    • @[email protected]
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      2124 days ago

      Buy/collect used books off students after they finish the course… Remove the ink, resell undercutting him by a ton and make a huge profit!

  • @[email protected]
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    10924 days 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.”

    • @[email protected]
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      24 days 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

  • @[email protected]
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    6624 days ago

    Unfortunately many courses now give assignments through sites that are only accessible by purchasing a textbook with a unique access code

    • @[email protected]
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      5024 days ago

      So in every other country if they tried something like that, students would kick up shit, government would step in and sort it

      So it’s either, too pussy to stand up for yourselves, or you’re living in a dictatorship

      Which is it? 😂

      • @[email protected]
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        2324 days ago

        i don’t know who’s downvoting you. As an american who had to go through that shit, you’re not at all wrong.

      • @The_Hideous_Orgalorg
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        1224 days ago

        Selfishness and greed. Anyone that stands up stands alone, and the others are quick to lick a boot as they grovel for scraps. For some inconceivable reason too many consider this preferable to standing together and working to make things better.

      • @[email protected]
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        823 days ago

        North American here. Funny how it’s very much less “which is it?” And more “Yeah. Basically.”

        We’ve been culturally domesticated to not cause trouble for our bosses / schools / etc. If the State steps in after you cause trouble for enterprise, it’s usually to kick you back into your place.

        We might not live in a State dictatorship, but that only matters so far, because that State enables many tiny, petty dictatorships that more directly affect your life and run amok unopposed.

        Somehow people accept petty tyranny in everything from corporations to universities to shifts at the burger joint. They’ll get all riled up that some politician they never met is bawking about foreign policy, but their tail is tucked firmly when their company tells them they can’t get sick days and arriving a minute late is a fireable offense.

        Many have bought the lies of rugged individualism and competition. “An insult to one is…well, that really sucks for you but I told you to just stay quiet. I’m just working hard doing what I’m told.”

        Like someone said before me: Even the most rebellious in us think twice about making our move, because many people simply think “That’s how it is.” And don’t believe it can get any better.

        There’s not a lot of examples of collective action winning in recent history, so a lot of people don’t even know how to begin to push back in the first place, besides writing an angry tweet or two.

    • @[email protected]
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      2224 days ago

      A professor at my university tried that, but the students quite quickly made a huge fuss, got the principals office involved, and the universities lawyers informed said professor that what she was doing was illegal, and that she should stop before she got any more trouble. She stopped.

        • @[email protected]
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          122 days ago

          Possibly a poor translation from my side: I’m referring to the “head office” of the university, i.e. the group of people under the direct leadership of the principal, who have the highest administrative authority at the university.

  • @[email protected]
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    6224 days 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            1324 days ago

            I can’t tell if you actually are confused or not, so I’ll just answer as if you are: the original poster WAS alluding to pirate-actions.

              • @[email protected]
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                324 days ago

                Well I’m sure Somalian pirates are capable of pirating in many ways, maybe even simultaneously! Why limit yourself you know?

              • @[email protected]
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                24 days ago

                No worries, happens to me too!

                As an aside, at least for me, that first thought that pops into my head when I am trying to understand or interpret something, can be so silly and strange and outside the box, I will legitimately laugh at myself sometimes because of it.

                And if it makes you feel better, my first thought reading it was actual sailing too, but only for a moment as I added more context to it. Not sure why I would think of real sailing considering where we are posting but something in the way it was written lends to it.

            • @[email protected]
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              323 days ago

              It was SO smooth I literally just thought “Ah must be nice having a boat to go clear one’s head on the waves once in a while since you’re not hustling to pay for all them textbooks.”

              Whooshed me like a salty breeze, it did. XD

  • Frank Ring
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    24 days 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      2424 days 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
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        524 days 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          1024 days ago

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

          • Frank Ring
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            424 days 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.

            • @[email protected]
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              624 days 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
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                424 days 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      1223 days ago

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

      • Frank Ring
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        1724 days 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      424 days ago

      The best investment I made in textbooks was the class that wanted a Schaum’s Outline book, $15 brand new and still a book I use for occasional linear algebra reference.

    • @[email protected]
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      323 days 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”

      • @[email protected]
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        122 days 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    24 days 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    24 days ago

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

  • @[email protected]
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    4124 days 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
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    3725 days 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.”

  • @[email protected]
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    3525 days 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
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    3524 days 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.