Before OSX I was using unix/linux boxes, so I’m not sure how things worked on OS9. I’ve created a little shell script to run pdflatex and bibtex on my dissertation.

I got LaTeX installed on my Mac by installing MacTeX (available at http://www.tug.org/mactex/).

Arjun, until that dissertation is done, don’t even read newspapers. Why are you reading blogs?

I’m not teaching this year or next. But someone had better teach about species concepts…

In fact I need to read as little as possible. I need to get the dammed dissertation written, that’s what I need.

Now I feel guilty so I’m going to get back to work.

The text book industry is a capricious one, which is why ebooks such as Kindle are trying to horn in on the racket. I’m not saying undergrads won’t still be grabbing ankles, though I imagine it being a Kindler, softer fucking.

I’m wishing there was some way I could justify getting the lab to pay for it

I know $50 is way more expensive than your usual paperback bestseller, but that’s a long way from the $120 and up for most textbooks. Because these books have a limited audience they have to charge enough to recoup their printing costs. Plus, most of the people who read this stuff have to read this stuff for professional reasons, so they’ll buy it in hardcover at pretty much any price. John’s book may very well also be a textbook for some graduate philosophy of science course somewhere (or at least in John Wilkins’ classes).

The thing about textbook prices that pisses me off is that the books for general lower-division classes such as Chemistry and Calculus are so high, yet they sell zillions of them because everybody and their mother has to take those classes. To add insult to injury they come out with new editions every couple of years to help kill off the used book market. Does basic Calculus really change every 2-3 years?

I wish I watched more TV shows so I could use this handy metric. It does seem to fit.