Thanks for the clarification, you must be a genius. Why is .pdf support "experimental" and shitty even on Kindle2? Why do you need wireless to send a file to Amazon to convert a file and send it to your device? Lets get real. If a decent reader device existed, every grad student in the country would want one.

Seriously, E-book is about the stupidest invention I can think of. How about a device that I can use to read the thousands of .pdf files I have. There is no use waiting for all of the academic papers in the world to be re-done in some e-book format. How about all the pdf versions of books available through torrent that I shouldn't have to fire up my laptop to read? I know there are technical problems involved with pdf, but it can't be that hard. I would guess that the first effective .pdf document display device would catch on like a new ipod. DRM? Fuck 'em, everybody can afford a scanner.

Your experience is quite common. The last thing an instructor should do when an automated system finds similarity is to accuse a student of misconduct. It is far more informative to have someone do similar work in a more controlled environment. The best way I've found to weed out wrongdoers is to give a far worse grade for one of the similar submissions. The student with the bad grade (if they cheated) almost always slips up and complains that the person they copied from got a better score.

I think you need to have a serious look at the probabilities involved with your monkeys on a typewriter idea. It shows a complete ignorance of modern statistics and datamining to even suggest that "someday" it will be hard to write original work because it will be compared with many others.

Cheating is pretty easy to detect. I have written cheating detection programs and used them successfully. It is actually surprising how well any sort of longest common subsequence comparison will do in spite of any changes students make. It is always up to a human instructor to verify anything if an accusation is to be made. That being said, cheaters usually produce crappy work anyway. I would have to say that at least in computer science courses you need to be quite talented to get past any of the methods I have designed. Usually more talent is required than simply doing the assignment well. I think cheating is just something humans need to give up on. Like chess, checkers, and properly enforced financial fraud; computers have us beat.

Working in a cubicle should scare you. That's why you in particular need to go to graduate school. Since you are looking for advice, I have some for you. Go to graduate school somewhere else. Not only will it be more impressive, it makes practical sense. It shows that people who didn't know you want you to work with them, which is more than any line on a resume could say. Second, you can get a lot more work done when you aren't distracted by familiar things. Watch the movie Real Genius, and remember that people need you, but don't get taken advantage of.

13% sales growth, with 2000 customers so far! At that rate, everyone in Mexico will have one in about 100 years.