Well, if you sell the book back to the bookstore you usually get a little less than half the new price. They charge about 2/3 of the new price for a used one. So if you buy used and sell back, you can make back a decent portion of your money.

Imagine a $100 text. You can buy it used for about $70. You can sell it back for about $45. You ended up spending $25 for the book. I doubt that book would ever sell for $25 on the Kindle, so by that measure, Kindle's a bad deal.

BUT, you have to move fast and get lucky to get all of your books used - I never managed to get used copies for more than half of mine from the store. And selling them back can be a hassle - they often won't take a book that's been used by several owners, especially if, like Steph's students, you're a big marker and highlighter. Plus, half the time a new edition has come out, and they won't take it back because next year they won't need it.

I had problems selling that way.

Using half.com, the facebook market, or another campus exchange system can work a bit better for finding books or buyers, but it's a lot of hassle. I did it some. I usually didn't bother.

If you resell it to the bookstore, you'll get practically nothing, but most colleges have student-run Craigslist type boards for reselling directly to other students.

Where were those when I was in college?

Oh yeah, no internets back then. I feel very old.

Oh, yes, no internets back then. When I explained to one of my students that I only got an email address my last year in college, and then it was only an intranet, you should have seen the look of horror on his face. I then further blew his mind by telling him that we had to register with scan tron forms He begged me to stop. Heh. evil cackle.

It's kind of amazing. I wonder how I found stuff out before the internets? I mean, between Google and Wikipedia I look stuff up all day long every day, from just-for-the-heck-of-it interesting stuff to phone numbers, times of stores opening, maps & directions.

It's hard to remember how I got along pre-Internet, even though I can still bore my kids with "When I was a kid we didn't have..." stories.

When I was in college, there were only mainframes. The then brand new and exciting HP scientific calculators cost $300. I used a slide rule. I wrote my papers on a portable manual typewriter. I rode dinosaurs to class and it was uphill both ways.

The then brand new and exciting HP scientific calculators

Reverse polish notation! I had, still have, a HP scientific calculator though it wasn't $300. Nobody ever wanted to borrow my calculator more than once.

In college I had a programmable TI-55. Ten memories! 31 programming steps! Rechargeable battery! 11 digit LED!

Oh, and a Radio Shack PC-1 pocket computer. With about 1.4k memory, programmable in BASIC. I also had the printer/cassette interface.

I'm thinking of upgrading my cell phone (good for making phone calls, period, but works in Senegal) to a smart phone of some sort. Blackberry, iPhone, etc. I want to be able to check my email, twitter, and maybe check b.org on it. Does anyone have any recommendations/warnings? Or is this low-end enough tech that I should Natter it instead?

I used to rent a typewriter at the Student Center to write my papers on.

We also learned with sliderules in my advanced Math classes in HS.