Kindle for college students

Is the Kindle a wise investment for college students?

Here's a very good economic analysis of whether the Kindle is a good investment for college students, based on textbook purchase costs.

This came out to an average cost of $438.23 per semester if they bought the new books on Amazon (which is cheaper than what most universities charge for new books) or at $295.13 per semester used. However, a more realistic scenario would be a blended cost, with half new and half used, at $366.00 per semester. If they had purchased all of the books on the Kindle, they would have spent $234.00, or a savings of $132.00 per semester. Over a period of 8 semesters, that’s $1056.00, which if you subtract the cost of the Kindle at current prices, we’re talking about a net savings of $700.86 over four years, which is not insignificant. To put this another way, if college students had the ability to buy all their textbooks on Kindles, they could wipe out the cost of a Kindle with their savings over printed books in 3 semesters, or a year and a half.

A significant "yeah but" to this analysis, which the author does mention in the article, is that many textbooks are not available on Amazon yet for the Kindle.

Big Box Reuse

Not sure what this has to do with anything, but it's an intersection of two subjects near and dear to my heart: building reuse and big box stores.

What to do with a big box store after the store relocates or closes?

Slate has a slideshow about reuse of Big Box stores.

I learned one new thing from this slideshow, and that is about the lease stipulations for subsequent tenants after the first store leaves. I would not have guessed that a Wal-Mart could exert so much influence over who the subsequent tenants are for the physical store, even after they voluntarily leave a location. For example, Wal-Mart can have rental stipulations that say that no competitor can move into an old Wal-Mart store, even if the new Wal-Mart is located far away.

Well, on the other hand, maybe I could have guessed this. People - and, by extension, companies - seem to always want to keep control over their former domain, even when it's in the best interest of the townspeople to allow new tenancy so as to prevent a dead urban landscape.

Typealizer

Typealizer attempts to tell you the Myers-Briggs type of your blog based on its content (I think). It's probably doing keyword matching at the very least. It might also use some sort of character analysis, such as punctuation frequencies.

Anyhow, it says that this blog is as follows:

The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work in their own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

Ok, after you're done laughing about the risks part and the conservative part, I think there might be a grain of truth to this. The type presented there, however, ISTJ is not my Myers-Briggs type. I have pretty consistently come out ENTJ every time I've been measured. The E/I is the closest one to being "middle" and I'm off the charts "N". There's no "S" in me. However, I guess when I'm throttling what I have to say for my "work blog" there is more validity to the ISTJ verdict.

As an aside, when I fed it the URL for my daughter's blog (or rather, the blog I keep about my daughter and my home life), the "F" scale shot way up, and THAT blog actually turned into ESFP or some such. I think that part is amusing. Probably I used more exclamation points in that blog, or pointed to more pictures, or who knows what. Used words like "cute" or "love"...?

Anyways, an interesting experiment. Perhaps Dr. Duvall's AI class could write something better/more accurate.

How to criticize: know something first

Joel Spolsky has a brilliant mini-critique of critiques this week on his blog Joel on Software (good reading for all CS/CIS majors, btw).

[There has been] an unbelievable proliferation of anecdotes disguised as science, self-professed experts writing about things they actually know nothing about, and amusing stories disguised as metaphors for how the world works....[W]eak theories on tipping points, crazy incorrect theories on first impressions, or utterly lunatic theories on experts, it all becomes insanely popular simply because the stories are fun and interesting and everybody wants to hear a good story. Spare me.

Well said. I loved Gladwell back when he wrote interesting stuff like The Ketchup Conundrum but he's gone all to hell lately. (Ahem: Perhaps he needs an editor too?)

Go Back to the Garage

Sage advice for new grads and others who find themselves at a crossroads in The New Economy.

Don't wait for the opportunities to fall in your lap. Economic hard times are a boon to those who know how to be entrepreneurial and inventive. Plus, it's a LOT of fun to live like this. (Take it from me, I really know.)

Take a look at 5 Tips for Startup Success (and I apply 'startup' here to life in general, whether it's starting a new business, or jumpstarting a new career path, or starting a brand new career for a new graduate)...

sql file for Dave's class

Assuming that all goes well with Derby in Dave's class, we'll be using this sample file:

Sample Petstore Database File