I hate printers with a passion!

[Hankcah]

I work at a healthcare company on the Electronic Medical Records blah, and they try to sell the software as "it Saves paper" yada yada.

WE/ALL healthcare IT teams have people who just sit in rooms with printers and ship off pallets of paper with med records on them and put in storage.

THEY HAVE TO, it's the law just in case a lawsuit comes to play.
BUT we can put entire charts to PDF format and email.

Saving trees, my ass

Printers just seem tacky.
Yes it helps to pre-print your homework before school and just have one less thing to worry about, but why can't you just use the library to print your shiz?
ALL teachers have eMail now so why submit our papers physically?
You have to pay for ink. it's more expensive than gas.
They give away printers with ink just knowing the companies get all of their money from ink. JUST like free razors......the money is in the blades silly!

 

[rdowns]

Thank you for your thread. I have printed a copy to keep for my records.

 

[Hellhammer]

In my experience, teachers prefer having an assignment on paper instead of the screen. Why? Because it's easier to do markings and most teachers aren't very tech savvies

 

[steve2112]

"PC Load letter? What the #@$! does that mean?"

Printer ink is one of the biggest ripoffs around. That's why I tell people to buy a laser printer. It's more expensive up front, but the cost per page is much lower.

 

[QuantumLo0p]

In addition to all the previous gripes, don't forget there are discreet markings on printed pages that identify who's printer it came from. I know this government mandate is aimed at counterfeiting and other illegal activities but this Libertarian feels it is still a huge invasion of privacy.

 

[R94N]

I'd rather email things as well, but most of my school stuff has to be on paper or in a physical book

In my experience, teachers prefer having an assignment on paper instead of the screen. Why? Because it's easier to do markings and most teachers aren't very tech savvies

Excellent point Sometimes also they want to keep assignments in physical files/folders as well.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam?! I swear... one of these days I kick this piece of **** out the window!

 

[talmy]

For what it's worth, I require my students (Electrical Engineering Juniors and Seniors) to submit all all assignments electronically. Except for a CD or DVD of course materials at the start of the term, everything goes to students electronically as well.

I admit that it does take more time to grade, but the students get graded work back faster because they don't have to wait until the next class session. And I do get convenient record keeping with backups as well!

We used to require that Senior Project reports be submitted as multiple printed copies, but that is now electronic as well.

 

[r1ch4rd]

When I was at university all of our assignments had to be handed in electronically so that they could be run through the automated plagiarism detector. I'm not entirely sure that such a system existed, I think they just wanted the fear

 

[yg17]

When I was at university all of our assignments had to be handed in electronically so that they could be run through the automated plagiarism detector. I'm not entirely sure that such a system existed, I think they just wanted the fear

No, I'm pretty sure there's a real system.

I can't help but wonder, with millions of students' papers being submitted to this service, isn't the pool that the papers are compared to going to get so large that there are going to be false positives? It's like the million monkeys typing on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the work of Shakespeare adage. Eventually 2 papers out of millions on a given subject are going to look alike even if there's no plagarism going on.

 

[steve2112]

No, I'm pretty sure there's a real system.

I can't help but wonder, with millions of students' papers being submitted to this service, isn't the pool that the papers are compared to going to get so large that there are going to be false positives? It's like the million monkeys typing on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the work of Shakespeare adage. Eventually 2 papers out of millions on a given subject are going to look alike even if there's no plagarism going on.

Yeah, just do a search for plagiarism checker, and you get tons of hits. I've seen some sites that do this, and it's kind of neat. But you are right, eventually it seems that it would start hitting similar stuff.

 

[mgmusicman94]

Printer ink is one of the biggest ripoffs around. That's why I tell people to buy a laser printer. It's more expensive up front, but the cost per page is much lower.

+1. I love my laser printer. It's fast and efficient and I barely ever print in color so it's perfect. Even though they do make color laser printers.

And I thought I'd add this since I hate [inkjet] printers...

 

[Rodimus Prime]

When I was at university all of our assignments had to be handed in electronically so that they could be run through the automated plagiarism detector. I'm not entirely sure that such a system existed, I think they just wanted the fear

No it is a real system. A lot of them will highlight in red on the paper what appears to be plagiarism. Now I was told by a teacher most papers have little bits that are highlighted but that is a non-issues. It is more when they see 90-95% of a paper in red that really raises flags.

My biggest issues is those systems will sometimes get a student in trouble on their own work. I knew one student which the system flag for it because he had submitted the same paper on the subject a year or 2 prior for another class. It was still his original work he was just recycling it. He fought that one for a while at a hearing at the school over it. He won because he proved it was his work and no wrong doing was done.

I know for a few labs I would recycle old lab reports over and over again because the formatting was already done and often times a good part of the report could be reused. Why should I rewrite the entire thing when all I need to do is change a few parts.
In my programming class I will often times copy paste code from other programs I have written because the method works. Heck tend to keep methods I find useful and I used often in a few text files. Biggest give away that I am using recycled code is sometimes the variable names do not fit with the program.

 

[steve2112]

+1. I love my laser printer. It's fast and efficient and I barely ever print in color so it's perfect. Even though they do make color laser printers.

And I thought I'd add this since I hate [inkjet] printers...

I have a B&W laser (HP LJ1320) that I picked up from eBay dirt cheap. The seller thought it was broken. Thankfully, I used to work on printers all the time, so I knew how to fix it. I also picked up an HP Color Laserjet at Office Depot dirt cheap. It was a display model and was about %50 off the normal price. I have both of them on my home network. And, yes, I am a huge nerd.

 

[talmy]

When I was at university all of our assignments had to be handed in electronically so that they could be run through the automated plagiarism detector. I'm not entirely sure that such a system existed, I think they just wanted the fear

I don't use a real system, but when I suspect plagiarism -- typically because the writing style keeps changing or doesn't match what I perceive as the student's capabilities -- I just take a sentence and Google it, putting the sentence in quotes. I usually catch one or two plagiarizers a year.

 

[wvuwhat]

My father still prints off every email he gets. Jokes, chain letters, EVERYTHING. It really pisses me off, but according to him, he wants hard copies should his computer crash. He apparently does the same thing with his work email, I'd have to think the company would frown on that. Of course, he's one of the 235 people in the world that still have an AOL account and email...

 

[Bonch]

I like printers. They often break so it's a good excuse to take it out to the woods and shoot it with your shotgun. And since you are going to the woods to dump the printer it is convenient to dump anything else that would otherwise clutter up your house and cause a tripping hazard, such as old computers or furniture, or those big blocks of styrofoam, old tires, etc.

 

[JackHobbs]

I'm a maths teacher and my students have exercise books that I take in and mark. My students are 11 to 18 and all of their work is paper based. There is marking software out there but there are some things it is difficult to mark with it. If you are not careful you end up marking the things that are easy to mark by computer instead of the things that you need to mark because it demonstrates understanding. Typing in maths formulae and working can be a little time consuming so overall paper is generally easier.

On a personal basis, the last thing I would want when I am sitting at home is for students work to be pinging into my mailbox. It would be like I am never away from school!

On a hate thing, I don't mind printers but I hate printer and scanner drivers. I have a Canon multifunction printer and after lots of trying I still cannot get the Canon software to work. It says I haven't got the drivers even though my MBP recognises that the scanner/printer is there. I have a work around using Preview but it does my head in.

 

[Disc Golfer]

I love the HP photosmart series of printers. I've had two since I got a digital camera ten years ago, and only replaced the first one because the second had better specs and was free. The first never stopped working, I eventually sold it on craigslist because I don't need two printers. I've put way more work into my more recent photosmart than it was ever designed to handle and only now, at 4 years old, is it exhibiting an issue (it claims there's a paper jam sometimes, even if there isn't, but you just have to press the OK button to get it to work again). The only thing I don't like about my photosmart printer is that it doesn't print wide format.

 

[yojitani]

Anything that requires careful reading needs to be printed IMHO.

 

[steve2112]

On a hate thing, I don't mind printers but I hate printer and scanner drivers. I have a Canon multifunction printer and after lots of trying I still cannot get the Canon software to work. It says I haven't got the drivers even though my MBP recognises that the scanner/printer is there. I have a work around using Preview but it does my head in.

Drivers do suck. I love my HP Laserjet 1320. It's a compact laser printer that is fairly quick and even has built in duplexing. Then I got a new Windows 7 PC. HP decided they weren't going to release a Win7 driver for that printer, and instead released a universal printer driver for Win 7. While it works, it doesn't allow device specific abilities such as duplexing. Thanks HP.

 

[dmmcintyre3]

Printer ink is one of the biggest ripoffs around. That's why I tell people to buy a laser printer. It's more expensive up front, but the cost per page is much lower.

If the laser printer is free from where your neighbor worked before the place closed down, inkjet makes no sense. We have had a laser about 6 months and still on the original toner that was "low" when we got it.

 

[steve2112]

If the laser printer is free from where your neighbor worked before the place closed down, inkjet makes no sense. We have had a laser about 6 months and still on the original toner that was "low" when we got it.

Even better! I got my JetDirect networking card for my LaserJet like that. A friend called me and told me his company was getting rid of a lot of old equipment. He found an external JetDirect (networking card for HP printers) in a closet. That's also how I got the switch I use. As far as toner, I think I have replaced the toner in my B&W laser once in 6 years.

 

[notjustjay]

I don't use a real system, but when I suspect plagiarism -- typically because the writing style keeps changing or doesn't match what I perceive as the student's capabilities -- I just take a sentence and Google it, putting the sentence in quotes. I usually catch one or two plagiarizers a year.

I was once hired by my thesis supervisor (who was also in charge of the faculty co-op program) to grade the co-op term reports. This was a 4-6 page report with (a) a summary of what the company does, and (b) a summary of what that student was working on.

One student worked at a telecom company and their "what the company does" section sounded very polished. Too polished. And familiar. As it happened, I used to work at that telecom company. I used to work on the same product that the student was working on. So I definitely recognized some of the phrases from the documentation, the press releases...

(The story would be much more ironic if it had turned out I had written the documentation in the first place, but sadly, this was not so.)

I went to Google and started marking up which sections of the student report were straight copy-pasted out of the company's marketing materials. I'd say about 90% of his report was word-for-word plagiarized.

 

[ctt1wbw]

I feel the same way about fax machines. I HATE those things. Like someone said about PDF files... scan what you need to fax, and then email it.