[QUOTE=Dubslow;426744]This second suggestion is far more plausible. It's a well known tactic among colleges/professors to, instead of buying just a textbook, require that students buy a textbook that comes with a unique key to an online homework/administration website. That way not only are the students forced to buy physical copies of the textbook, which most otherwise wouldn't, but they are also forced to pay a second time (sometimes almost as much again as the overpriced book) to get the web access. Quite a scam really.[/QUOTE]

see where I tried to go to community college here you could buy the textbooks and then other than a few practice problems that you had to check with the teacher to check for the correct answer never really used them. admittedly they were errored but less than the teachers seemed to be based on how they taught us other than using rounding to correct for errors potentially.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;426741]Did they perhaps intend Web [b]De[/b]sign? And in either case, WTF does that mish-mash of disparate subjects even mean? [If I had to guess I'd surmise that it sounds like a 'unique niche' marketing angle for the crowded undergraduate-texts market. "See, these other texts all have a fine treatment of Precalculus with Limits, but none of them properly combine it with Web Design, erm I mean Web Assign, as Leibniz did way back in the day."][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=science_man_88;426742]based on a few searches it may be to go along with [url]https://webassign.com/[/url] with the https scratched out.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Dubslow;426744]This second suggestion is far more plausible. It's a well known tactic among colleges/professors to, instead of buying just a textbook, require that students buy a textbook that comes with a unique key to an online homework/administration website. That way not only are the students forced to buy physical copies of the textbook, which most otherwise wouldn't, but they are also forced to pay a second time (sometimes almost as much again as the overpriced book) to get the web access. Quite a scam really.[/QUOTE]

Yep. [url]https://www.webassign.net/features/textbooks/larpcalclim3/details.html[/url]

Thanks, all - so it's still a scam, just not one involving an obvious book-titular typo as I surmised.

[B]Yesterday evening, a Belgian train ran for 12km with no driver.[/B]

According to reports, the driver detected a problem as the train arrived at its destination (Landen), and got out to take a look. The empty train then left the station without him, of its own accord. The railway company cleared the line ahead and routed it into a station 12km further along (Tienen), where another driver successfully jumped aboard and brought it to a stop. There is going to be a thorough investigation as to how this could happen.

Press article (in Flemish): [URL]http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/regio/vlaamsbrabant/1.2577005[/URL]

[QUOTE=Nick;426821] where another driver successfully jumped aboard and brought it to a stop[/QUOTE]
That's interesting, thanks for sharing it. It seems that either the guy was drunk and forgot the locomotive running, or the remote command was hacked. No big deal. It happened to me once in the fuel station, when I switched from manual car to automatic (gearbox) car. In Thailand it was common for a while to get a "ticket" when you arrive at (some) fueling stations, because there was no room to park in a queue, so everybody got a ticket with a number, parked his car randomly and they used megaphones to call your number. Actually, I liked that, they were very well organized, and you wouldn't need to wait in a queue, you could do some shopping around or have a coffee in the parking area, also helping the "local commerce". They were calling you 2-3 numbers in advance, so you could prepare. There are now much more stations, i didn't see a queue at a gasoline station for years. Well.. what happened is that the idiot-LaurV went out from the car to get his number, and the car started going unexpectedly, in reverse. He has to run after it, open the door and pull the hand brake. I not only forgot to pull the hand brake, but I also forgot the gear lever in the "R" position... :redface: Totally red face. Luckily no car behind, and not many Thai people to laugh at the stupid farang...

What I don't understand in your story, is the part about another guy jumping aboard to stop it. That is not LaurV's car. In the past, trains "used to" get into a station on a busy line (already occupied by another train), causing accidents, therefore since 30 years ago, or so, the magnetic breaks are mandatory, i.e. at the entry of any station there is a magnetic device on the side of the tracks, which gets lifted up 20 cm or so, if the line in the station is occupied (or it can be lifted by command, to forbid access to a line/station). And if it is lifted, when a train passes over it, it switches on some emergency break mechanism inside of the locomotive (there is a similar magnetic device on the locomotive, which couples to the one on the track, when it flies over it), causing the train to have a fast, emergency stop. If the driver (we call it mechanic, or conductor, is it "driver" correct in English for the guy who drives the locomotive? he is more like an airplane pilot than like a driver), so even if the guy is dead, or feel asleep, or the track lights/signals are broken, etc., there is [U]no way[/U] to bring the train to the station if the magnetic brakes are up. Unless the locomotive is defective in the sense that someone removed the braking system by intention. Some new locomotives may have a remote command access (which may be hacked), but not for emergency brakes, they are always magneto-mechanical and manual. So, why the second guy was needed? What they should do, is just lift the emergency brakes at the entry of the next station.

About this "second guy", there are thousand of questions too, how fast was the train going, how did he got in? another wagon running on a parallel track? etc. Smells fishy. If the speed was not high, why they could not do it in advance?

Me having my Saturday morning coffee...

Sounds like the [URL="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/10/marysville_man_was_inspiration.html"]Unstoppable[/URL] plot line, déjà vu all over again.

[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSX_8888_incident"]yep![/URL]

Also related: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man's_switch#Locomotive"]dead man's switch[/URL], a [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_protection_system"]photo[/URL] of the thing I was talking about, and a proof that [U]it is[/U] implemented in the [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatische_treinbe%C3%AFnvloeding"]Netherlands[/URL], and [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_%28train_protection_system%29"]Bel[/URL] [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_balise-locomotive"]gi[/URL] [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Voie-Machine"]um[/URL].

[QUOTE=LaurV;426905]Well.. what happened is that LaurV went out from the car to get his number, and the car started going unexpectedly, in reverse. He has to run after it, open the door and pull the hand brake. I not only forgot to pull the hand brake, but I also forgot the gear lever in the "R" position... :redface: Totally red face.[/QUOTE]
It's a great story though probably not funny for you at the time!

[QUOTE=LaurV;426905]
What I don't understand in your story...About this "second guy", there are thousand of questions too...[/QUOTE]
Yes, I don't have any answers yet. The incident has now reached the English language press:
[URL]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35611868[/URL]
[URL]http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2577194[/URL]
- but the investigation is only just starting.

[QUOTE=LaurV;426905]...
If the driver (we call it mechanic, or conductor, is it "driver" correct in English for the guy who drives the locomotive? he is more like an airplane pilot than like a driver),...[/QUOTE]
They're Engineers over here...

[QUOTE=LaurV;426912][URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSX_8888_incident"]yep![/URL]

Also related: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man's_switch#Locomotive"]dead man's switch[/URL], a [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_protection_system"]photo[/URL] of the thing I was talking about, and a proof that [U]it is[/U] implemented in the [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatische_treinbe%C3%AFnvloeding"]Netherlands[/URL], and [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_%28train_protection_system%29"]Bel[/URL] [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_balise-locomotive"]gi[/URL] [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Voie-Machine"]um[/URL].[/QUOTE]
Very interesting! Thanks for the links, LaurV!

[QUOTE=EdH;426954]They're Engineers over here...[/QUOTE]And drivers over here, so your English is correct. Your American is faulty :wink: