OT: Educattion Going Green ?

In a recent presentation by a business school fellow to a few hundred professionals, he breathlessly announced to applause that they were 'going green' and henceforth their continuing education project management courses would no longer come with a thick binder of printouts, but each student would be supplied with an iPad containing all the materials.

Any guesses as to how many gallons of fossil fuels go into making a $500 iPad vs. a few dollars worth of recyclable printouts?

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany
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PLEASE!!! Do _not_ confuse anyone with the facts!

Reply to
Robert Baer

Agreed, this will cause way too many people to go into strong denial, and make their heads hurt.

The fact that paper comes from farmed trees (grown about 10 to 15 years typically) is a fact that the 'greenies' would rather people not know. They continue to offer the myth that paper is made with old-growth trees and that paper companies are cutting down all the forrests to make their paper!

Reply to
PeterD

Yea...with their em-phah-sys on the word "all".

Reply to
Robert Baer

I have concluded that the cure for global warming is to do away with government-funded universities. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Also do away with government-funded politicians!

Reply to
Robert Baer

I always was fond of the Roman approach... if they weigh more when leaving office than when they entered, kill them :-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Just re-using books over and over, like we used to do, would be so much better.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat

Ah, but you see the publishers are wise to that -- today there are often new editions of a book year couple of years even when the fundamentals have changed little or not at all (e.g., calculus books, signals & systems books, basic circuits, etc.). Sometimes there's a few new pages, but mostly what happens is that the problem set numbers get shuffled around.

For whatever reason (the fact that they get a free copy probably doesn't help), many instructors will require the students to have the most recent edition. Even of instructors who realize they're seldom doing their students any favors by catering to the publisher have the problem that if their "preferred" edition was only in print for a couple of years, pretty soon it becomes impossible to find enough good used copies to provide to the students.

The publishers like the "rented for the semester" eBook model even more: It completely eliminates the used book market, guaranteeing them a new purchase for every student every year. Woo hoo!

As to the original post... clearly an iPad takes a lot more resources to build than a single book, but if that iPad takes the place of some dozens of books it might start to be a closer call... and of course if the student was otherwise going to purchase an iPad anyway (which is highly likely these days), it clearly is a net win.

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Can an iPad highlight and annotate? ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

It depends on the particular eBook reader: The "native" eBook reader Apple supplies -- iBooks -- can highlight but not annotate; Amazon's eBook reader (available for the iPad, Android phones/tablets, PCs, Kindles, etc.) can do both

formatting link
.

I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about eBooks if the industry could decide on a common format for the books.

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Yes, and smarter readers would also be nice. Microsoft Ebook cannot read an ascii .txt file.......

Reply to
Sjouke Burry

Why am I not surprised? I've developed a hatred for that particular outfit. Google, however, is quickly catching up and will be surpassing it as the World's most evil corporation in a very short time.

mike

Reply to
m II

No, no, that title goes either to the Umbrella Corporation or Cyberdyne Systems, silly!

OK, *maybe* Graystone Industries... (the one that builds cylons, that is)

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Probably unionism.

Hope This Helps! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

This has been the universal lament since people have been making stuff. I'm relatively surprised that every after-market toilet seat will fit on any toilet. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

I went to check my email on Yahoo the other day, and it needed the latest and "greatest" browser just to retrieve my email. It showed up in the same format as that new M$ thing.

Even Yahoo is getting Microsquashed.

Sigh. Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Actually, they won't, will they? -- The oblong versions seem to be the most popular, but the nearly-circular ones are still quite common?

I'd be OK with, e.g., 2-3 major eBook standards, but right now it appears that every time someone comes out with a new eReader, they come out with their own new proprietary format as well. :-(

Reply to
Joel Koltner

And MICRO$~1 comes up with a new proprietary format every couple of years, obsoleting everything.

Sigh.

Thanks, Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

No, they won't. There's one in our front hall awaiting the return trip to Home Despot.

Not to mention DRM schemes.

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

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