nuff said

Mattyj and a few others had some good info. Use analogies, but tailor them to stuff your faculty/admins are familiar with; grades, exams,meeting minutes, billing , other frequently-touched projects. and ABSOLUTELY, document costs. if possible, show what you can project costs are for NOT using it - based on some tangible event or cost. Hardware: needs storage, and if a dedicated server you can help harden it by keeping it on private address space. Plus, many mgrs like fully-contained costs, not a partial share of use/maintenance on a shared box. Warranty or service contract, installation (if racked), and costs if you need to shift/share costs with telecom/network for campus, new/repurposed electrical feed, UPS & backup systems. Operating System: license & support costs if any, and human time to train up, and document, backup, train others Software, lots of open source stuff - weigh the support ( even poor support is better than a project that gets abandoned) cost and support to learn/almost master that particular application.. and document and train.. Projected Lifecycle: how long will this be viable, before it needs to be replaced or moved to a new OS/ new piece of hardware? -- will your data be in a simple-to-migrate form (txt, csv, xml).. even 10 yrs or so from now? --- forecast interim upgrades, failed hard disks, and other 'reasonable to expect' products -- what happens to old data from old code projects? secure storage and old storage on this box is wiped? or will everythnig stay as long as hard drives can hold it? Universities don't have anywhere near the perceived resources that some have said. Student labor is rare - especially in a job where they do more than answer phones between facebook and homework. Spare equipment is becoming the standard equipment.. I haven't been able to test a new server OS for 3+ years. All live deployments on the only equipt. available.

The general consumer trend is making books generally worthless, even college textbooks. (Which is a whole pet-peeve of mine, right up there with selling back software /games at 5 -10% of their original price.) Published works are available in too many formats, most are far more economical than actually buying a book. - sorry publishers; Gutenberg's machine is nearly 7 centuries old. The economy is leaning towards Turing's baby now. Borrowing from friends, libraries, electronic forms, even electronic sharing have greatly reduced the ROI on purchasing printed paper. Sure, I do buy the occasional book. I then pass it along to someone who can use it, even if that winds up being a charitable organization. MY Books, on the other hand, are valuable for reasons far beyond the content. MY leather-bound and personally autographed HHGTTG, a 1948 version of the Encyclopedia of Chemistry and Physics, and a few cherished pieces are the ones I keep. I absolutely loved all those binders that came with my DEC desktop, programming manuals, and later PS/2 or Compaq boxen. I looked forward to being a technical manual writer - trying to make those big old books easier to understand. Now I'm not sure if I kept them as 'nostalgia', 'historical', or plain old hoarding.

amen.. in the big picture - yes, if anyone wants something like change bad enough they will find a way to make it happen. .. but losing your life in the process isn't a really promising way of change. If I die, I don't benefit, and I won't be able to protect my children from any blowback.

apathy, or at least 'keeping your head down' has become a way of dealing with government all over the world. Even in a relatively ok system of government, if you do decide to get involved, you will be branded as "anti-something-emotional" by your friends and others who disagree with you.

When fighting to change government, ( our own or someone else's with/without consent)...
usually we are sending young men to die in these kinds of things.. so we wipe out a good deal of that generation we started the fight for in the first place.

and yes to other poster, the internet definitely isn't getting a revolution going for, when so many other things are ranked higher on Maslow's reference.

25 years ago, I paid AOL their $3/ per hour for 14.4 dialup. When I started to work online, I was getting too many dropped connections from that service - but it was my primary account. So for another $20/month, I signed up for ATT-Worldnet with 40-ish hours a month free. If AOL failed, then I just switched providers, and didn't miss a day of online work.
About 20 years ago, Comcast came to my neighborhood (and yeah.. they ripped me off, but I won. another story) - they offered a bundle including @Home internet.
This was fracking amazing - speed and a flat rate. the dialup ISPs had just offered flat rates about 6 months earlier.
I was so mistrustful of the tech, and there were a lot of service failures, that for 2 years I kept all 3.
I dropped ATT first.
Then I stopped supporting AOL - though I still have that same account under the "free" system.
    --and I still have a few dozen AOL software coasters :)

Comcast got their act together, and about 12-13 yrs ago, took over the network form @Home. More recently, they limited, outsourced - and finally dropped Usenet services. That alone was enough to make me start looking.
Verizon is laying fiber all over the place.. but all I can buy is "high speed DSL".. or a business-grade T-n line.
My municipality - I dunno if it's like this all over - restricted the cable ownership, so no other cable providers.
Satellite companies - until very recently - were still calling a deal with telco for DSL "high speed internet".
Hughes Satellite - great for my Dad in the back country.. wants nearly 3X what I'm paying Comcast - after I buy/ lease $500 worth of equipment from them.. for 1/2 the "maximum theoretical speed".
At least Comcast has started to deploy Wi-fi in public areas... though - I do notice if I scan available networks, that when I see a Comcast wi-fi node, there is usually at least one or both along with it - TimeWarner / Optimum .. and the three have sequential mac addresses. It seems either they are cooperating, and/or there's a 3rd party running that operation for all.

Between the arguments here, and recently watching Niall Ferguson's PBS special (http://video.pbs.org/program/civilization-west-and-rest-niall-ferguson/) about immigration's relationship to economic growth..
it seems we have a lot of 'rednecks' and trolls on /.

The argument that
    " mexicans don't pay taxes" > "mexicans work for less" > "mexican labor takes jobs away from US citizens"
sounds an awful lot - to me - like
  " I download free music" > " I don't have money to pay for all the music I want" > " stealing music is okay, because I wouldn't buy it anyway"

Most Americans that I find don't want to work as laborers, even at double what the immigrant laborer makes. .. and in my area, "Mexican" is a rarity.. I see many more Dominicans, Guatemalans, and South Americans.

I personally have been trying to 'recruit' carpenters, electricians, plumbers and others to do work around my house, and for my Dad in the back country.. for a cash wage of $200 per day, .. at Dad's it is a guarantee of 2 weeks work ( 2400 cash for 2- 6 day weeks), options for more.. not counting room & board ,either in the (finished) basement of the house, or a hotel 9 miles down the road.

I've had a few takers.. all checked out as US contractors with insurance and proper corporate paperwork.
Most worked one or two days, took down payment for supplies / permits, then gave me one excuse or another why they won't be back for a week, a few days.. or more. The few who did call back after that wanted access to reclaim tools, or wanted to know why I stopped the check for supplies. They had 'bigger' or 'more important ' jobs that had just come up.

I dare you to find 25 semi-skilled US-born Americans who will work for themselves and show up for hard labor work day after day for $200 ( coastal big cities)- knowing they have to report it all "on the books". ( send 4 or 5 my way if you do!)
    The $80/ day immigrant laborer is also suffering from lack of work
        http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/nyregion/new-jersey/29colnj.html
        http://articles.cnn.com/2007-10-02/us/sanchez.btsc_1_day-laborers-job-offer-immigrants?_s=PM:US

This country was built on cheap labor - and continues to thrive on it today. (learned from Ferguson)
    I don't want to be at the bottom of the economic ladder.. so somebody else has to be. ( personal prejudice)

Heck yes - the system has lots of flaws, and badly needs cleaning up.
Hating the folks who immigrated here after us (or our ancestors, pardon to the real Native Americans) - is not productive.
If you want someone to hate - look at your elected officials that don't change the laws until they have to.. or until it is an election-time advantage.

Echo last few comments -

HOAs have enough trouble with the 'normal' maintenance costs & all that goes into collecting, paying, and accounting for that money.
If you start to become a middle-man, the HOA may become an ISP, with all the fun responsibilities like answering DMCA complaints and disconnecting the creepy guy in Apt 4C who keeps torrenting Kenny G's latest single and a few 'interesting' pictures of his 'nephews'.

How anyone thinks this will be the end of traffic is beyond me.
and +1 insightful for first 2 or 3 that if this happens, it will be the end of personally-owned vehicles.

Traffic is a result of ( volume of cars) > (capacity of road).
Unless these driverless cars can also change work schedules, the majority of people will still be hitting the roads at the same time.
Heck, we can see this now. In any larger city, we all know how internet performance degrades after 4PM when the tweens & teens get home from school, and on weekends when the rest of us are fragging those little buggers online. Wait for next Sunday (Mother's Day, at least in US) when all the Skype, oovoo, and other voip calls are getting placed. If the algorithms that govern ethernet collisions have not eliminated "traffic" delays, how is Google going to eliminate traffic with reality-based steel& rubber boxes that cannot be resent if the 'packet' doesn't reach a destination address?

Besides, I take my "it will happen in the future" clues from the Sci-Fi of today.
I haven't seen anything with (plentiful cars) && (no traffic)
  - Blade Runner, Futurama, The Fifth Element, Dr.Who" gridlock", Total Recall, and probably many more.
Traffic may be more organized, but it will still be dense traffic.

echo all the "Costco " posts; several other chains are adequate too.

However, as parent points out, you can request a photobook, canvas, etc.
    (mod parent +1 informative)

My biggest issue with hard-copy photos & other data is storage & retrieval.
If you want to have a hard-copy around in 20 years to hand to your son, immediately put the photos into a book or other format designed for long-er term storage, and for occasional handling. Plastic covers or sleeves are nice, but nearly all I have seen eventually change chemically; the ink gets stuck to resins in the plastic, the plastic cracks from light or oxidization, or they just alter the color of the photo, requiring the photo to be touched repeatedly and replaced in the holder.
    Consider your options, and at least separate pages with acid-free paper or tissue paper.

Books are easier to keep organized and more easily put somewhere & retrieved when you want it.
-- unless your world isn't like mine, with envelopes & small boxes of developed 35mm film, photos, 2nd copies of photos, half-finished photo albums, even Dad's old Kodak slide projector hidden somewhere in the eaves of the garage.

Echo: Bravo - Sierra
Publicity / maybe a local story "with legs"

BN sells books on Metaspolit, wardriving, and even "Steal magazines.

    Idea: maybe if one or two complaints causes this kind of reaction, imagine if their phones were to experience the /. phenomenon and just 0.05% of us complained, say about the sadism and child abuse in "The Hunger Games", or the mediocrity of the last Moby album?

Can we use the power of /. for the good of society? !

Nah.. nevermind.. no profit involved. Bask to work.

@pla: +1 because you are a 1%-er. ( intended as a wake up; I can't afford the 1% moniker, maybe I'm in the top 10)
    Sure, for the /. audience, the "algorithm" of following the instructions, including branches.. plugging & chugging when we fill in variables, and making an informed decision on deductibles - is all likely within our grasp.

However, look around at the rest of the country.
Most Americans cannot balance a checkbook [1], [2].

The basic tax guide "Publication 17" is over 300 pages long. [3]
The instructions for the basic 1040 form is at 100 pages [4].

Just answering the questions "What's New?", "Do I have to file", and "Where do I file" ( [4] pages 6-7) incorporate 4 more pages of tables and worksheets referenced in the text ( pp 8-11), and suggest the taxpayer review 10 separate publications for clarifications, outside the 'core' paperwork of Pub 17 and 1040 instructions.
  point: it is complex, even to "just follow the instructions". Not everyone is the sort who just jumps in, presses ON, and only looks for manuals after it doesn't work. ( I am.. but not everyone is.)

If you are lucky enough to have a job, and a mortgage, play in the stock market, and do contracting on the side.. you are a pretty smart and fairly motivated person. You can multitask. You can prioritize tasks, and see projects through to the finish.
Only 58% of the US population is employed.. or 42% is not. [5] - BLS report " population/employment ratio" .. when it comes to the word "unemployed", the US Govt needs to take a lesson from Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”

Never mind making educated decisions about deductions like work expenses and medical costs. I don't think the average American could fill out the typical medical insurance claim form, never mind read one and extract information for tax purposes.

How many Americans - picked "at random" - would you trust to balance your checkbook, or to fill out your tax forms?
Heck, I don't even trust a "jury of my peers" to render a sensible verdict.
Most folks I have met can't follow a 2 -page recipe in a cookbook, or remember the plot to a 200-page novel unless the movie and/or starred Heath Ledger or Megan Fox.

If every citizen was encouraged to do their own taxes, imagine how much WE taxpayers would be paying to clean that mess up?
Don't give people more credit than they deserve. Look at our last few elections.

Edit: "this one works for filing up to $57K" : http://www.irs.gov/efile/index.html
    sorry~!