Okay, let’s make a deal. Don’t tell this guy about it:
[Quote]:
A new patent granted this week aims to stop students from sharing textbooks, both off and online. The patent awarded to economics professor Joseph Henry Vogel hopes to embed the publishing world even further into academia. Under his proposal, students can only participate in courses when they buy an online access code which allows them to use the course book. No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science.

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[Quote]:
A techno-dance routine that preceded Microsoft’s Windows Azure presentation at the Norwegian Developers Conference this week featured a group of women jumping around on stage to a song that included several drug references and this line: “The words MICRO and SOFT don’t apply to my penis.”
In a strange effort to be inclusive, a monitor displaying the lyrics added, “or vagina.”
As Gruber says, “Now Apple has to redo their whole plan for tomorrow’s WWDC keynote”
[Quote]:
Microsoft has apologised for a performance at its Norwegian developers conference that it now says “involved inappropriate and offensive elements and vulgar language”.
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A professor with a very limited thought process lacking creativity. A professor of economics, clearly, and one who doesn’t understand economy 101.
I hope this is a stupid joke. A patent is meant to be for protection of a non-obvious innovation, not for enforcement of such a rule. Anyway buying used textbooks is a time-honoured way for students to economise.
When is the higher education bubble going to burst?
It’s a patent. So maybe this one professor will use it, but he is discouraging everyone else from doing the same since they’d have to license it from him first.
If you want to reduce college costs, don’t let the professors change books every year. It’s all a con to make more money from the text books. Most courses don’t even change very much between decades.