5 ms·

This is really an issue that should not exist. I have also bought textbooks only to be immediately disappointed by the fact that you have to use a specific app

by tapia 4y ago

This is really an issue that should not exist. I have also bought textbooks only to be immediately disappointed by the fact that you have to use a specific app (like the adobe DRM thing... or just try to get your money back). Then you have to start figuring out how to remove the DRM and lose time with that. Sometimes the quality of the book is also pretty bad, e.g. they don't even include a digital table of contents, which should be essential in a digital copy of any book (this has happened to me with textbooks from Springer). In my case, this has lead to actually buying less textbooks and just pirate the books instead. I don't have the time to deal with all this customer-unfriendly behavior.

hackernewds 4y ago
These are pretty poor excuses to cope with piracy
- brutusborn 4y ago
  If legal options aren’t useable, the black market will fill the void. Once this is fixed, the dynamic swings back (like how torrenting became less popular since streaming services) You might find it immoral, but 99% of the world disagrees with you (e.g. ubiquity of illegal drug use worldwide)
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Maybe my perception is off, but it seemed to me that torrenting really dropped off a cliff when Netflix was dominant, and had basically everything available on it. Then, when the streaming service market blew up because the content owners wanted to make more money by only offering their content on their own service (Disney+, CBS all access, etc.), torrenting went back up because it was no longer inexpensive for a streaming subscription, since you needed a dozen of them to cover everything you wanted to see (with usually only one show on one service that you care about).
    - brutusborn 4y ago
      Yeah definitely, the pendulum swings based on consumer satisfaction. Hopefully streaming can be federated in some way and we can get past this phase.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        I kinda doubt it: doing so would decrease profits, because you wouldn't, for instance, be able to pay a tiny amount to just watch one show on Disney+ instead of having to buy a full subscription. Instead, it's going to be like cable TV and landline telephone service: something new will come along to attract people's attention, and they'll just keep pissing customers off, and as more and more leave, the service will get worse and worse, and the prices higher and higher, to take advantage of the suckers who refuse to leave, until the whole thing finally implodes.
- tapia 4y ago
  I think that the poor excuses are in the other side. Adding DRM to files to actively preventing the user to choose in which devices he/she wants to read the file and for how long the content will be available goes against the whole concept of "buying" a book. When I buy a book I expect to be able to open it in ten years in whatever device I'm using, running any OS that I want. That's why we have standard formats. And I also expect that the quality of a book for which I payed 50-90€ for (because that is normally the price range) to have a good quality and at least a table of contents. A few occasions I had to manually add table of contents for books that otherwise would have been unusable to me.
  - T3OU-736 4y ago
    "buying a book". You're not, though. Nor a film/movie. It is, at least in the US, treated as something along the lines of a temporary contract to view. And so... DRM is used to as a tool of enforcement of the contract term's expiration.
    - inkblotuniverse 4y ago
      Hence piracy is the better option.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        Piracy is the moral option.
    - suprjami 4y ago
      Yeah, that's the whole problem.
goosedragons 4y ago
One of my textbooks came with a digital copy. I would sometimes just use that on my iPad instead of lugging in the physical book to campus. I remember racking my brain all day on a problem that asked you to prove some result, wondering how the hell that was true only to get home and realize the digital version flipped the inequality...
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Could have been a Dantzig moment![0] [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-problem/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-proble...
- charlieyu1 4y ago
  As a maths teacher who also have written a textbook, I have seen a drastic increase in errors in books compared to 5-10 years ago. I don't know why, maybe the scheduler is tighter or proofreading is now too expensive.
  - this-pony 4y ago
    From what I heard, it’s because Springer et al. hired editors in India to cut costs…
  - ta988 4y ago
    The last springer book I've had is so poorly written that there is absolutely no way it was proofread. It is not just one mistake here or there. It looks like a quick draft with incomplete sentences, repetitions all over. Looks like those "cheap" packt books.
    - smnrchrds 4y ago
      Looks like someone sent "fundamentals_of_math-e4-v2-final-finalv3-final.docx" to the printer instead of "fundamentals_of_math-e4-v2-final-finalv3-final-final.docx"
    - riedel 4y ago
jtbayly 4y ago
I have a $70 ebook (Amazon Kindle) of an academic work (not a textbook) and it is practically unusable. So many problems compared to the physical book. Never again.
- Finnucane 4y ago
  Handling complex material has never been a priority for the Kindle. To be fair, more recent iterations have improved support for things like tables and MathMl, but it’s still a work in progress.
- treeman79 4y ago
  With my adhd I learn programming drastically better on physical books. Stupid I know, but it helps drastically to see it on paper. Sadly it’s either crazy expensive, or not even an option to get paper for newer frameworks
  - ykonstant 4y ago
    > Stupid I know, but it helps drastically to see it on paper. Not stupid at all. Myself, and every single colleague of mine that I know (pure mathematicians) have to print every non-trivial document that we really want to study deeply.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      I'm reminded of 'edw519, and his habit of printing out source code listings to work on without losing focus. See e.g. http://static.v25media.com/edw519_mod.html#chapter_49 http://static.v25media.com/edw519_mod.html#chapter_49, and then CTRL+F for "print" from there.
      - treeman79 4y ago
        I used to do this all the time in my early career. Stopped at some point. Probably when I stopped working on really hard things and started working on complicated things that touch tons of files. Going to try this again. It was really helpful

by tapia 4y ago

hackernewds 4y ago

These are pretty poor excuses to cope with piracy

brutusborn 4y ago
If legal options aren’t useable, the black market will fill the void. Once this is fixed, the dynamic swings back (like how torrenting became less popular since streaming services) You might find it immoral, but 99% of the world disagrees with you (e.g. ubiquity of illegal drug use worldwide)
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Maybe my perception is off, but it seemed to me that torrenting really dropped off a cliff when Netflix was dominant, and had basically everything available on it. Then, when the streaming service market blew up because the content owners wanted to make more money by only offering their content on their own service (Disney+, CBS all access, etc.), torrenting went back up because it was no longer inexpensive for a streaming subscription, since you needed a dozen of them to cover everything you wanted to see (with usually only one show on one service that you care about).
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    Yeah definitely, the pendulum swings based on consumer satisfaction. Hopefully streaming can be federated in some way and we can get past this phase.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      I kinda doubt it: doing so would decrease profits, because you wouldn't, for instance, be able to pay a tiny amount to just watch one show on Disney+ instead of having to buy a full subscription. Instead, it's going to be like cable TV and landline telephone service: something new will come along to attract people's attention, and they'll just keep pissing customers off, and as more and more leave, the service will get worse and worse, and the prices higher and higher, to take advantage of the suckers who refuse to leave, until the whole thing finally implodes.
tapia 4y ago
I think that the poor excuses are in the other side. Adding DRM to files to actively preventing the user to choose in which devices he/she wants to read the file and for how long the content will be available goes against the whole concept of "buying" a book. When I buy a book I expect to be able to open it in ten years in whatever device I'm using, running any OS that I want. That's why we have standard formats. And I also expect that the quality of a book for which I payed 50-90€ for (because that is normally the price range) to have a good quality and at least a table of contents. A few occasions I had to manually add table of contents for books that otherwise would have been unusable to me.
- T3OU-736 4y ago
  "buying a book". You're not, though. Nor a film/movie. It is, at least in the US, treated as something along the lines of a temporary contract to view. And so... DRM is used to as a tool of enforcement of the contract term's expiration.
  - inkblotuniverse 4y ago
    Hence piracy is the better option.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Piracy is the moral option.
  - suprjami 4y ago
    Yeah, that's the whole problem.

goosedragons 4y ago

One of my textbooks came with a digital copy. I would sometimes just use that on my iPad instead of lugging in the physical book to campus. I remember racking my brain all day on a problem that asked you to prove some result, wondering how the hell that was true only to get home and realize the digital version flipped the inequality...

psychphysic 4y ago
Could have been a Dantzig moment![0] [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-problem/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-proble...
charlieyu1 4y ago
As a maths teacher who also have written a textbook, I have seen a drastic increase in errors in books compared to 5-10 years ago. I don't know why, maybe the scheduler is tighter or proofreading is now too expensive.
- this-pony 4y ago
  From what I heard, it’s because Springer et al. hired editors in India to cut costs…
- ta988 4y ago
  The last springer book I've had is so poorly written that there is absolutely no way it was proofread. It is not just one mistake here or there. It looks like a quick draft with incomplete sentences, repetitions all over. Looks like those "cheap" packt books.
  - smnrchrds 4y ago
    Looks like someone sent "fundamentals_of_math-e4-v2-final-finalv3-final.docx" to the printer instead of "fundamentals_of_math-e4-v2-final-finalv3-final-final.docx"
  - riedel 4y ago

jtbayly 4y ago

I have a $70 ebook (Amazon Kindle) of an academic work (not a textbook) and it is practically unusable. So many problems compared to the physical book. Never again.

Finnucane 4y ago
Handling complex material has never been a priority for the Kindle. To be fair, more recent iterations have improved support for things like tables and MathMl, but it’s still a work in progress.
treeman79 4y ago
With my adhd I learn programming drastically better on physical books. Stupid I know, but it helps drastically to see it on paper. Sadly it’s either crazy expensive, or not even an option to get paper for newer frameworks
- ykonstant 4y ago
  > Stupid I know, but it helps drastically to see it on paper. Not stupid at all. Myself, and every single colleague of mine that I know (pure mathematicians) have to print every non-trivial document that we really want to study deeply.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    I'm reminded of 'edw519, and his habit of printing out source code listings to work on without losing focus. See e.g. http://static.v25media.com/edw519_mod.html#chapter_49 http://static.v25media.com/edw519_mod.html#chapter_49, and then CTRL+F for "print" from there.
    - treeman79 4y ago
      I used to do this all the time in my early career. Stopped at some point. Probably when I stopped working on really hard things and started working on complicated things that touch tons of files. Going to try this again. It was really helpful