Five Free Calc Texts

March 8, 2004 11:18 AM

Review of Five Free Calculus Texts.
posted by weston (14 comments total)

Slashdot Filter
posted by psychotic_venom at 11:36 AM on March 8, 2004

(what psychotic_venom means is that his link goes to *just* the article -- I linked to both the article and slashdot comments. It would probably have been nice of me to provide links to both in the post.)
posted by weston at 11:50 AM on March 8, 2004

It would have been even nicer not to post this at all. Don't post links to /.
posted by mkultra at 12:31 PM on March 8, 2004

Ummm... if it's good content, why not?
posted by weston at 1:07 PM on March 8, 2004

I'm not arguing that weston's particular post is good but nobody has ever explained why posting a link to slashdot is bad but other journals, weblogs or whatever is hunky-dory. My best guess at this point is that the popular kids there don't play nicely with the kids who call out slashdot links here and as a result they covet the popular kids karma.
posted by substrate at 1:34 PM on March 8, 2004

The economics of college textbooks is goofy, because the person who picks the book isn't the person who has to pay for it.

Man, ain't that the truth. A lot of my college profs supplemented their income by making their book required reading.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:19 PM on March 8, 2004

the popular kids there don't play nicely with the kids who call out slashdot links here

In the time I've been there, slashdot hasn't ever had recognizable personalities, let alone cool kids, unless you count celebrities or open source luminaries. So I think this is just plain and simple grouplog rivalry, personally. There's a lot of noise on Slashdot, of course, and lots of stuff posted there that would make a poor post here, but as far as that goes, of course, MeFites live in a glass house and shouldn't throw stones.

And since we have one entire comment that's actually on-topic this here thread: I'll just say that I think it's really cool. Especially the text on using infinitesimals -- that's a very uncommon approach, but one that I'd find highly interesting -- but free texts of reasonable quality in general.
posted by namespan at 3:29 PM on March 8, 2004

...and now I'm off to fail a calculus test. My TI-89 is my only hope.
posted by dogwelder at 5:00 PM on March 8, 2004

nobody has ever explained why posting a link to slashdot is bad

That's not the problem -- it's really very simple.

Attribute your fucking sources. Particularly if it's a huge site (Slashdot, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) Slashdot is infamous. It has millions of visitors a day, so the chances are very good that Mefites have already read it; at the very least, you could do a tiny bit of Googling and find some additional info that makes this particular post unique. Otherwise, why not just have a /. feed on the side of Metafilter's homepage?

It doesn't take a genius to repost the top links from the largest websites. If you're going to do it, make it yours by adding some content, so you can at least pretend you have a shred of originality. And attribute your damned links if they're just blatent rip-off's.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:26 PM on March 8, 2004

I'd agree partway with that Civil_Disobedient, but it's never put that way. It's always with a snark "SlashdotFilter" or "Don't post links to slashdot". I think this was a weak link personally, but not because it was on slashdot. Pointing to the top of a discussion is pointless. You might as well post FPPs to Metafilter itself. Occasionaly on slashdot and other sites there is an interesting signal in the noise. A post to that particular branch of the discussion could be a good FPP.
posted by substrate at 6:47 PM on March 8, 2004

Pointing to the top of a discussion is pointless.

Many slashdot posts are in fact like that (and a few of them are linkworthy anyway), but this wasn't one of them. This was a reasonably unique review of five books, and completely original content.

It doesn't take a genius to repost the top links from the largest websites. If you're going to do it, make it yours by adding some content, so you can at least pretend you have a shred of originality. And attribute your damned links if they're just blatent rip-off's.

Attribute? Attribute what? I could understand the snarkiness apparently signified by phrases like "attribute your damned links" if I'd pulled a link off of slashdot and failed to put a "via" on there, but in this case, I just linked to content that was, again actually on slashdot and nowhere else. By your logic, Civil_Disobedient's, your last post should have read:

Man short on funds, mails himself home [BBC link]. Judge not amused, fines him $1,500. More background info here [gothamist.com link]. Robbed of the Darwin Award.

Uneccessary, isn't it? It doesn't take a genius to realize the link is the attribution here.

So... any objections to the actual content, other than the fact it appears on slashdot?
posted by weston at 7:45 PM on March 8, 2004

Not really. To steer this discussion off MeTaFilter, It does show, though, that you do still get what you pay for, to a certain extent at least.

The problem with calculus textbooks is entrenched. For instance, James Stewart, the most popular calculus author in the land, sends out books to dozens of universities (all of which are noted in the preface of the book). His professional and personal connections helped get him started, and good reviews from name universities make the book take off. "Gee, Berkeley used it, so I guess it's good enough for Appalachian State."

Of course, it's in it's fifth edition now. Just four years ago, I was using the third edition. I have little doubt that Stewart's presentation is as inscrutable to the casual reader as it was two editions ago.
posted by calwatch at 11:59 PM on March 8, 2004

That's a good point, weston. The [via] tag is the usual standard when a link is from a major site that's linking to the original. But in this case, the /. content was original (as you point out) so I'll offer my apologies. I'm going to attribute my snarkiness to the recent double posts on the front page and the fact that I hadn't eaten in almost 24 hours.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:50 AM on March 9, 2004

Mighty neighborly of you, Civil_D... all forgiven. :) And for my part, I wil take care next time to explain posts like this more clearly, since it seems likely to help it get read and discussed.
posted by weston at 8:37 PM on March 9, 2004