Bent wrote on Aug 7, 2022, 13:23:
What's ruining Twitter now is them trying to force people to log in to see more than the first few tweets.

This used to be intermittent but it's happening all the time now.

I don't have a Twitter account. I'm not going to get one. I am, however, going to stop stop visiting Twitter sites. As are more and more people.

Way to Darwin Award yourself, Twitter.

Here is a hack to fix browsing Twitter without an account.

Mr. Tact wrote on Aug 8, 2022, 10:38:
I have no doubt that is your world. Hell, some of the time it is my world. But it is a lot easier in a classroom to have students turn to page 100, than it is get them all on the same webpage. And that's making the huge assumption everyone has devices available.

Let me clarify that I am looking at this from a CS/IT collegiate point of view, not Mrs. Smith's second grade class. From that perspective, there isn't a single student that does not have some device available as it is a requirement for attendance. Be it tablet, laptop, a PC in the classroom (one for every student), their own personal PC, or even a phone. Getting them on the same webpage is dirt simple since they have to go to that same webpage to turn in their assignments and (dependent on the preference of the instructor) take tests. They already have to be there so why not just put the textbook as open courseware in the same place?

There's no justifiable reason for the price or existence of collegiate level textbooks in 2022. Adding NFTs and blockchain so Pearson, and other companies in the same industry, can rent seek from sales that they are not a first party to is just yet another example of their uselessness.

Mr. Tact wrote on Aug 8, 2022, 10:38:
Surely you're not telling me you have no books in your home?

Of course I do, but that's not an apt or equitable comparison. None of my Scalzi or Heinlein novels cost were more than $10 per novel. Moreover, they are not required for me to understand a subject. I don't own any hard copies of technical books because they're a complete waste of space and money. Why store, transport, upkeep, and pay for a bound technical volume that will be obsolete by year's end when I get newer, more up to date information about that subject online for free? This is a personal thing, but I don't want to prop open a book against my third monitor when I can just have a PDF, webpage, or some other means of information conveyance already on it.

The non-technical books I have are for things that do not rapidly change. Mead making, carpentry, and subjects of that nature. The difference to me is those are subjects I chose to build a library around instead of being arbitrarily required to do so.

The problem is multifaceted because those textbooks are also shilled through book vouchers that are only redeemable through on-campus bookstores. The bookstores are more often than not independent of the college. The markup on those textbooks is ridiculously stupid because the vouchers themselves are inflationary to cover the extreme markups on the text books. Pearson knows this, the reseller knows this, and it's all a fig leaf for what are kickbacks.

That's why I am glad that some of the professors that I know are gaining ground on going with open courseware. It's really the only viable solution to what I see as predatory capitalism on the part of Pearson.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 8, 2022, 04:23:
OK, name one thing that a textbooks cover that you can't find online, for free, and often presented in a more accessible manner.

I have no doubt that is your world. Hell, some of the time it is my world. But it is a lot easier in a classroom to have students turn to page 100, than it is get them all on the same webpage. And that's making the huge assumption everyone has devices available. Surely you're not telling me you have no books in your home?

Retweets are a minor annoyance. The big one is Suggested Topics that started cropping up this year. Some days my feed has been 75% suggested topics that Twitter wants to promote (kpop, US movie and music releases when I'm in the UK, politics etc). They get included by default and you have to opt out of individual topics to try and avoid them. You can get a Lewis Hamilton article, opt out of it, then still get similar articles under the topic of F1 and then Motor Sport. It's persistent and annoying.

The real magic fix is that you can click the sparkles in the top right of the centre column of your feed, and select Latest Tweets instead of Top Tweets. Top Tweets became my default without asking and contains all this bullshit - latest tweets cuts all that out and just gives you tweets from people you follow.

Mr. Tact wrote on Aug 7, 2022, 23:59:

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 7, 2022, 19:26:
Textbooks are like phone books, literally useless for their intended purpose.

I don't think I would go quite that far, but I'd agree Pearson is a standard evil corporation.

OK, name one thing that a textbooks cover that you can't find online, for free, and often presented in a more accessible manner.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 7, 2022, 19:26:
Textbooks are like phone books, literally useless for their intended purpose.

I don't think I would go quite that far, but I'd agree Pearson is a standard evil corporation.

Pearson is evil and always has been. A couple of professors have been gaining traction in the computer science department in pushing for open courseware since literally everything in a paid-for textbook is available for free online. For several years, one even "accidentally" posted a PDF of the book on Blackboard for students to "accidentally" download so they didn't have to pay for the book, which was something like $200 dollars. Utterly ridiculous.

Textbooks are like phone books, literally useless for their intended purpose.

jdreyer wrote on Aug 7, 2022, 14:30:
I do have a Twitter account, but I almost never log in (I don't think I've even posted anything with it). I agree that forcing people to log in is annoying. Instagram, FB, and other sites are all going this route these days.

Yeah, I don't like that trend either. And I can say with a fair amount of certainty it won't work on me. Require a login and I'll just pass.

I figured out Pearson was worthless in early 2001, a few months after they had purchased the company I worked for. Still, I worked for them until they dismissed me in a layoff in early 2016. Which frankly, I had been expecting for about a decade -- was very surprised they took as long as they did. Like most corporations the executive level management was a bunch of clowns who had very little understanding of what their company actually did or how it worked.

Bent wrote on Aug 7, 2022, 13:23:
What's ruining Twitter now is them trying to force people to log in to see more than the first few tweets.

This used to be intermittent but it's happening all the time now.

I don't have a Twitter account. I'm not going to get one. I am, however, going to stop stop visiting Twitter sites. As are more and more people.

Way to Darwin Award yourself, Twitter.

I do have a Twitter account, but I almost never log in (I don't think I've even posted anything with it). I agree that forcing people to log in is annoying. Instagram, FB, and other sites are all going this route these days.

If a school ever made Metaverse and Pearson digital scambooks mandatory that's maybe a good indicator that you should not send your kid there... just saying. Because holy crap would that be a chilling precedent.

I'm guessing that they're trying to quickly boost their number of users for that sale. This is going to hurt the company badly.

What's ruining Twitter now is them trying to force people to log in to see more than the first few tweets.

This used to be intermittent but it's happening all the time now.

I don't have a Twitter account. I'm not going to get one. I am, however, going to stop stop visiting Twitter sites. As are more and more people.

Way to Darwin Award yourself, Twitter.