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

[Alain Schremmer]

On Oct 27, 2009, at 7:36 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote:

> While I was still teaching (I've been retired since 2001

This is the year I went on half load, half salary but full benefits.

> after too many years teaching Physics at a local Community College)  
> it seemed to me that most of the expense was because they went over  
> to fancy color diagrams and kept on removing topics and doing a  
> worse job of explaining things. All flash, no content, just like  
> I've, for the most part, seen everywhere else.

Ah but the reason for that is less cost and more sales:

1) "fancy color diagrams": 4-colour printing got to be cheaper and,  
again, part of it could be thought of as advertising cost: you don't  
see many adds on TV do you? (I don't really know because I don't even  
own a TV. But I have a hard time imagining.)

2) The contents had to be rearranged for easy customizing. e.g. "So,  
you want trigonometric functions before quadratic functions? No  
problem, here it is." No way for readers to make any sense: just  
memorize if you can. But more sales.

Regards
--schremmer