Out of curiosity, what journals are you submitting to that require "camera ready" copy? I'm aware of very few in the life or physical sciences, and most of those aren't exactly top tier.

Most journals expect the text (including citations) in a "standard" format, I'm aware of none that won't accept any semi-recent version of word (.doc/.docx), most accept PDF, many will accept RTF, a few will accept TEX (maybe most if your field is physics or math). They generally want each figure as a separate file, either vector or bitmap with a fairly high minimum resolution, so they can resize the images and reflow text around them. How tables are presented/accepted is pretty journal specific, but this is the one area where many journals may reformat your work.

As for Nature and Science, I "created" the cover image for a supplemental issue of Nature Structural Biology quite a few years ago. For covers and promotional things, their art department gets involved and the final image may only look vaguely like what they were sent in the first place. Really, I probably could have sketched something on a napkin instead of spending time trying to make a decent figure in the first place with the changes they made in the end (though we did get to give our approval for the final image). As for the associated review article, the figures were all published as submitted; one of the editors may have asked for a change, but we would have made it ourselves.

I think both parent and GP are somewhat correct. As a country, we do spend more than most other countries and get overall poor results. However:

We spend the money poorly. Most of that money should go to educational materials (books, pencils and paper, and even so to computers), teachers, and infrastructure (buildings, heat, electricity). However, most districts have become pretty administration heavy; I've seen towns with one elementary/middle school and one high school that have both a superintendent and an assistant superintendent, both making 6 figure salaries. I've also lived in the south, where a district "couldn't" afford textbooks, but could afford $2M for a new football facility plus pay for 5+ full time coaches.

At the same time, we don't pay teachers particularly well. Sure, a 20+ year veteran teacher is probably making $60-70k in a reasonably well off district, but probably starts around $30k, less in some areas. So what we get is far from the "best and brightest" going into teaching as a career.

The money that is there doesn't get distributed at all uniformly. Overall, I'd say that the poorer (and incidentally more rural) communities tend to have worse outcomes. There actually are plenty of good public school systems in the US, but they tend to cluster in areas where parents tend to be better educated themselves or at least care about education for their children and that tend to be better off financially - no surprise that the two tend to go somewhat hand in hand. And on top of that, crap like "no child left behind" all but guarantees that the districts most in need of increased funding get less.

A diff should be just fine. Parent talked about individual preferences for rendering (i.e. displaying) a tab. So as long as the editor maintains the tab character when saving the file, all should be well.

If, OTOH, some screwed up editor "renders" a tab by converting it to some number of spaces and then saves that...

Sadly, I'd have to say it's probably up to the prosecutor to determine whether or not to file charges and then up to a judge to determine whether or not to allow a case to proceed. The legal definition is pretty vague and subjective.

I believe it was Ed Meese during the Reagan administration who, when asked how he would define port, answered to the effect of "I can't give you a definition, but I know it when I see it."

I'm sure /. will correct me if I'm attributing the quote incorrectly.