October 2004 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: [gutvol-d] re: poofing and tarking
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

In a message dated 10/18/2004 1:54:55 PM Mountain Standard Time, Bowerbird(a)aol.com writes: but -- as far as i know -- his gift was spurned, for some bizarre reason i'll never be able to grasp. I don't know why it was spurned, but I do know that he's posted a lot of stuff that is still in copyright and sooner or later lawyers are going to eat his lunch. As long as nobody could figure out who owned the copyright, that was okay, but now that courts have ruled on the owner, it's another matter. Anne

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re: poofing and tarking
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

craig said: > you poofing friggleschnitz! mommy, mommy, craig is starting a flamewar! he called me a poofing friggleschnitz, mommy! i demand that he be banned! ;+) *** david said: > One and the same, yes. great! :+) and you did a little bit of work on... what was it?... plucker, right? ;+) if you are prepared to tackle the i.m.d.b., 15,000 e-texts should be a piece of cake... > ...much like bringing 5 friends into a video store, > and trying to agree on one movie for everyone > to watch. Not going to happen ;) i wish things were that inconsequential. but the project gutenberg e-texts make up the most important e-library, historically. although even now it's starting to be dwarfed by other efforts, it would be a proper tribute to michael if it were to be well-maintained... > That being said, I'd be interested in seeing > a list of the tools people know of, or are > working on, or have worked with in the past, > that can be used to take a 7-bit ascii text > PG work, and convert it into other formats. "convert" is a rather loose and unspecific word, wouldn't you say? :+) nonetheless, i'll cut to the chase... the main problem with the e-texts is their formatting is _so_ inconsistent. so before you can do anything useful with them, you must write routines that can resolve their inconsistency. the inconsistency is very maddening, because it's so pointless. although some is understandable, considering how many hands created the e-texts, the sadder truth is that much of it could have been prevented; however, mr. newby and company simply fail to grasp the negative consequences of the inconsistency, and thus never made it their priority to minimize it. the good news is you _can_ write routines that will fix the problem. it is _not_ impossible, just thorny; the biggest expenditure of time is a quality-control check to make sure that you knew every inconsistency. their variety will amaze and astound. subsequent conversion to any format is straightforward once you have done the job of resolving the inconsistency. you don't even have to do that job, if you don't want to, you can just go to david moynihan at blackmask and get his files, as he has edited out almost all the inconsistency, which is what then allowed him to make a half-dozen versions of most e-texts in the entire library. if you're looking for explicit info, ron burkey did a converter called "gutenmark", and his website at http://www.sandroid.org/gutenmark does a good job of documenting the inconsistency he faced on the way, before he gave up the effort, saying: > the more perfect my > automated conversions became, > the farther (in my own mind) > I seemed to be from > having a perfect conversion. i think that's a nice way of saying that the more he learned about the e-texts, the more he found out how bad they are, from the standpoint of consistency... there is also some basic information at: palmdigitalmedia.com/dropbook/converting but i'd guess that at this point in time, moynihan will have the most expertise about the problems you would be facing. much of it might be inside his noggin, but i do know he has a _lot_ of macros that undoubtedly embed gobs of wisdom. and, more to the point, david has shown, incontrovertibly, that mass conversions to a plethora of formats is fully possible. recently, david even _offered_ his files to project gutenberg, but -- as far as i know -- his gift was spurned, for some bizarre reason i'll never be able to grasp. oh yeah, i've written some routines that squash out most of the inconsistency, and there's a way you could pry 'em out of me -- namely, if you got support for my z.m.l. (zen markup language) built into plucker. it's a simple rule-set; you could probably have it up-and-running in a couple days... backchannel me if you're interested. :+) once you've vanquished the inconsistency, there are other concerns, which might or might not be a problem to you, including: 1. errors in the e-texts, lots of them. 2. styling lost or converted to all-caps. 3. information about images discarded. 4. image filenames are often not unique. 5. accents lost in many foreign e-texts. 6. a confusing redundancy of some books. 7. attacks levied if you reveal problems. oh yeah, also make sure that you are always working with the freshest e-texts available, as i'm not sure if they make an announcement whenever they make corrections to an e-text; they just quietly substitute in the new file... *** i would welcome you here, but i am on my way out the door _very_ soon... :+) there are a handful of tarking naugshlocks here _so_ unworthy of my help they made me decide to decline to do any work for project gutenberg, in spite of its great historical importance and my highest regard for the genius of michael hart. i'm sure others, like you, will cover my absence, while i will be happy grazing greener pastures... at any rate, have a nice day... ;+) -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] re: poofing and tarking
by Joshua Hutchinson 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Bowerbird(a)aol.com > i would welcome you here, but i am > on my way out the door _very_ soon... :+) Don't tease me. Josh

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Re: [gutvol-d] responses in the hopper
by David A. Desrosiers 17 Oct '04

17 Oct '04

> All that I've learned from these "discussions" is that a number of > people have a number of various ideas about mark-up (myself > included), and there's no way to make everybody happy. ...much like bringing 5 friends into a video store, and trying to agree on one movie for everyone to watch. Not going to happen ;) That being said, I'd be interested in seeing a list of the tools people know of, or are working on, or have worked with in the past, that can be used to take a 7-bit ascii text PG work, and convert it into other formats. Like you, I have some ideas of my own (as well as some tools I've rolled myself to help), and I'd like to see what everyone else is using right now. A quick google for my full name (with initial and in quotes) will tell you exactly why I'm interested in this exact topic of discussion ;) David A. Desrosiers desrod(a)gnu-designs.com http://gnu-designs.com

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re: Re: [gutvol-d] responses in the hopper
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 17 Oct '04

17 Oct '04

hacker(a)gnu-designs.com > I've been lurking, but I'm a long-time contributor > to these and similar efforts. are you the "hacker" who did the 9/11 report, and was talking about doing wikipedia too? -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] responses in the hopper
by D. Starner 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

"David A. Desrosiers" writes: > I've got some comments to lend to the discussion, but I've > refrained, because I see how some of the seemingly-neutral comments are > taken, and responded to. "seemingly" is an important word there. Bowerbird has started several flame wars here, and most of us have given up any hope of seeing anything productive out of him. Trust us, we're a lot more open to people who haven't repeatedly told us "I could help you, but I won't, because you're not worth it." (For one exact quote, try: > i've written the routines to do this (and other things), so i have > supreme confidence that the investment would be worthwhile. > > (if i hadn't been treated so badly by some people here, i would > be happy to give you the routines. but cheer up, they are _not_ > that difficult to write.) -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: [gutvol-d] Sniffing Books
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

In a message dated 10/15/2004 4:04:24 PM Mountain Standard Time, colc(a)gutenberg.net.au writes: >>Don't get too hung up on this one, as I am working on a >>"virtual aroma >>emitter". You rub your left ear in a certain way as you >>read the e-book and >>can then bring forth mould, vinegar, coffee, new-mown >>grass or whatever is >>required by that page to enhance your reading >>experience. I just have a few >>technical hitches to overcome. Version 2 will emit the >>smells without >>rubbing your ear. It will recognise words like coffee, >>grass, perfume, roast >>beef, etc. We will need a black list and a white list, of >>course. Most of us >>don't want to experience the actual smells as we are >>reading about running >>around the sewers below the streets of Paris. Aha! So YOU'RE the one who has been sneaking into Snapes's study abducting his potion ingredients! Doggone it, you KNOW Harry and Ron and Hermione got in trouble over it! Apologize and admit your guilt. (Gad. That sounds like a line from THE LAST EMPEROR or TO LIVE, doesn't it!) Anne

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re: Re: [gutvol-d] I'm sorry but I don't get it...
by Joshua Hutchinson 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

> all of this is just to resubmit a plea that i have made before > (and will _continue_ making until i get a positive response!) > for information about the name and location of graphic-files > to be included in the _plain-text_ versions of the e-texts... And now it is no longer a plain-text file. With the added penalty of having no existing validators to make sure that the markup used is done correctly. Basically, you're reinventing the wheel for no purpose here. Josh

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re: re: [gutvol-d] I'm sorry but I don't get it...
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

david said: > Once again, you're going to blow this off as irrelevant, aren't you. no, i'm going to tell you to join the beta-testing listserve, where questions such as this can be raised and answered... :+) have a nice weekend, mr. starner... ;+) -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] responses in the hopper
by D. Starner 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

Bowerbird(a)aol.com writes: > 3) though z.m.l. will create other formats, > people will prefer z.m.l., due to the viewer. Only those people who will install a viewer to read Project Gutenberg books, probably a small percentage of those who visit Project Gutenberg. > doubt it? then join the beta-test, > and tear my little baby to shreds... You ignore my critiques, so I'd rather not waste my time writing them. Furthermore, I run Un*x, not Windows. > i don't believe you can show me many e-texts from the library > that i cannot format unequivocally using zen markup language. > the figure i usually give is 3%, which now is 420+ e-texts, > but i'll be surprised if the number you can find gets that high. > frankly, i don't think you'll be able to find more than a few... Last time I checked, you only supported ASCII, so we can toss all our non-English texts in there. "Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany" provides a great example of an English book where you can't just magically add the accents in from a list of accented words, because the accents are in the character's names, plus anything that has Greek, or anything discussing Eastern Europe, or translations of the Sanskrit holy works, etc. Another fact is that Project Gutenberg's books were only ASCII plain text for a long time, and still are for a large part. Thus people doing work for PG did books that could be done well in ASCII plain text. Of course, you can handle 97% today, but DP does more and more stuff that isn't just novels with purely linear text. And last, I still object to this standard. We wouldn't build a building that 3% of the people couldn't enter. We shouldn't even consider standardizing on a system that can't handle 3% of the books we do. 420 books is a lot of books, and even if it stays three percent, it will only get larger. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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