Rip-off!

I received my final textbook for this quarter a few days ago and realized that this book was a total rip-off, much more so than normal college textbooks. This particular textbook is a supplemental course pack put together by our "Business, Government, and Society" professor which has additional readings for us. I’ve had these before and didn’t have too much to say about them one way or the other except that they were grossly overpriced and usually just scans or photocopies of original material. This book, however, was made up almost entirely from magazine articles, newspaper articles, and corporate publications that can be found online for free with a few minutes searching via your favorite search engine. The one piece that was not freely available online was 3 poorly copied pages from a 2003 textbook, which is available at the school library.

I have all of the links saved and will offer to email them out to any classmates who wish to have them so they can avoid wasting their money on a useless booklet. Maybe I should ask for donations? :)

Dumbest Thing I’ve Read Recently

A pair of hippy neighbors in Commiefornia have spent more than six years in court arguing over solar panels and trees. Mark Vargas sued his neighbors in 2001 because the trees in their back yard shaded his brand new, $70,000 solar panels. The judge recently ordered the neighbor, Richard Treanor and his wife, to cut down two of the redwood trees in their backyard to accommodate their neighbor’s new solar panels. Both families are the “ultra-hippy” type who planted their trees and installed solar panels because it made them feel morally superior to be “doing something” for the planet. However, Treanor planted his redwoods before Vargas bought his solar panels.

If I was going to blow $70K on anything I would probably do a bit of research. If my neighbors had either tall trees or trees that would get tall I probably wouldn’t put solar panels where they would potentially be shaded by the trees.

Read about it Here
And Here