[OS X TeX] Why does this hang so = [OT] electronic books

[Alain Schremmer]

On Oct 27, 2009, at 6:46 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote:

>
> On Oct 27, 2009, at 5:16 PM, Victor Ivrii wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Jason Davies  
>> <ophiochos at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>
>>> the vast majority of the cost of a book is the preparation.
>>
>> I am really surprised. My experience is that all typesetting is done
>> by the author. It may be another story with textbooks but for  
>> research
>> monographs!
>> The same story with journals. Reviewers AFAIK are free
>>
>
> Howdy,
>
> I guess I interpret the statement as referring to the writing of  
> the book rather than the typesetting.
>
> When I was going to graduate school (quite a bit before TeX was  
> around) I understood that books that contained maths were expensive  
> because they required specially trained typesetting talent. Now  
> that there is software that allows for the author typesetting the  
> maths with no special typesetting talent necessary I no longer  
> understand why books are so expensive.

Because money has become an end in itself.

Similarly, during the past thirty years, the profits of the  
"elementary textbooks" publishing industry have gone steadily up  
while the ranking of US students in TIMMS and later PISA have gone  
steadily down.

Regards
--schremmer