[seqfan] (brief asides: minor joke, textbook accuracy, apology)

[Rick Shepherd]

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003 2:55 AM Ralf Stephan replied to my aside...

> R. Shepherd:
> > (With apologies:  Former telecommunications software engineer becoming
> > desperate:  By the way, do *any* math jobs exist for people who only
> > have B.A.'s in Math (with High Honors; took twice as much as required)?
> > Helping proof textbooks, etc.? ...
>
> Guess what letter I wrote lately to de Gruyter, offering even a
> test period for free. No reply.
>
>
> ralf

(Assuming that's a publisher...)
Ralf,  now I know what we've both been doing wrong:
We are supposed to pay *them* while they see if we work well!
They are having such a hard time they can't afford this free stuff.  :^J)
(This seems to be the current zeitgeist, to use that word my first and
probably only time.).  At least in general (not just math) with books
I've seen it seems that publishers are becoming less and less careful.
My son's high school precalculus book last year had roughly one
math error per page -- and I'm almost positive that's much better
than most!  (Besides, what harm could one math error per page
make on a rocket launch or bridge design?!?)

By the way, I apologize to Meeussen Wouter (taking a tip from an NJAS
comment in a very recent sequence) -- not only did I misspell your first and
last names but I believe I had them backwards too! (The last part I can
blame on my e-mail program that appears to have just removed the "." and
"@..." in your e-mail address and displayed it in the From field.).  [I've
seen my own last name spelled about a dozen ways -- and those are just
the ones which are correctly spelling others' last names.  One last aside:
Beware any company that takes six months to learn how to spell your name
on your office and the company's official documents.].

An actual sequence question will follow later tonight or tomorrow,
Rick (Shepherd)