May 2005 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: [gutvol-d] newsletter editors
by Season BubbleGirl 17 May '05

17 May '05

Book reviews? Can I write some? Season BubbleGirl Author of A Doggy Diary and the explosive autobiography coming soon. www.bubblegirl.net - where individuality truly shines! Music Mash, puzzles, scrabble, Aussie's Playing Up, jokes, free ebooks -----Original Message----- From: "Greg Newby"<gbnewby(a)pglaf.org> Sent: 05/17/2005 6:33:37 AM To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion"<gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] newsletter editors On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 12:15:28PM -0700, Michael Dyck wrote: > Greg Newby wrote: > > > > On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 06:45:29PM +0200, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > > > > > > I don't read the newsletter at all because its too confusing. > > > > We've been seeking newsletter editors for a *long* time. > > Given that Part 2 of the weekly newsletter is now generated > automatically, and Part 1 ("Founder's Comments") is written/compiled > by Michael Hart, it's unclear what a newsletter editor would *do*. > Is there a job description somewhere? Alice Wood used to be the newsletter editor, for a year or so. Michael picked this task up again reluctantly. The ideal scenario is for him to send in some "founder's comments" to the Part I newsletter editor, but not to do the whole thing. The main activity of the newsletter editor is to produce a weekly newsletter (also a monthly, but that's just extracted from the prior month's weeklies). The schedule is for a draft to go out on Sunday or Monday, then the newsletter to be released noon Wednesday (all US Central Time). The specific features etc. are up to the editor. We have ongoing needs for announcements, requests, etc., but the rest is open: how-tos, book reviews, quotes, interviews, events... It would also be nice to have active management of our newsletter archives, too. Qualifications include: - excellent attention to detail - proficient in written English - able to interact well via email (periodic phone calls as needed) - available during the deadline "crunch" times - proficient in "plain text" formating - interest in literary works - able to accept input & suggestions from many constituents My estimate is this would start at 6-10 hours per week. The time commitment could shrink (due to better efficiency and some automation) or grow (due to greater involvement in PG activities, and further outreach). It's feasible for there to be a team doing this, or a "main" editor plus some backup editors. Inquiries or suggestions welcome! -- Greg _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

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Re: [gutvol-d] re: feedback report on the opticbook3600
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 May '05

16 May '05

carlo said: > Are you sure that you have really tried it? i haven't tried it at all. never seen one of the scanners myself. i was just posting one of the problems that i've been told about. and most people solve the problem pretty easily, just by doing the flips in another program, so it's not a show-stopper, it is just a sign that the software quality lags the hardware quality. carlo, i think d.p. should take up a collection and buy you a copy of that version of abbyy finereader specialized for older books. you are the best person there in terms of being skilled enough to make an evaluation about whether abbyy's claims stand up... -bowerbird p.s. actually, i don't know why p.g. and/or d.p. hasn't already cut a deal with abbyy to be one of their major beta-testers, but i'm the black sheep around here, nobody listens to me...

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re: feedback report on the opticbook3600
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 May '05

16 May '05

robert said: > In practice, though, it doesn't catch > the outer half-centimeter of the glass anyway. thanks, robert, for getting that feedback from people from distributed proofreaders on the opticbook3600... the outer half-centimeter? that's cutting things very close, isn't it? :+) the point is, no other scanner does better today. > With an ordinary flatbed, the book it pretty much > held in place by its own weight, although you can get > better results by applying some pressure from above. and even when you _do_ apply some pressure from above to an ordinary flatbed, you will not get results that are as good as those you get from the opticbook3600, right? so this is the same point as above. > And you only have to reposition the book for every other page. > With the opticbook, you have to turn the book every page, and, > for the half of the book where the heavy side is hanging off the end, > you have to hold the book in position more physically than for > the usual flatbed configuration. ok, that's true. but you get a better scan. so this, too, is the same point as above. there is a problem with the software that comes with the 3600, in that it won't flip _half_ of the pages, which is what you want. you either have to flip _all_ of them, or _none_ of them, neither of which is a suitable option. so you need to do the image-flip in a separate program, after you've done the scanning. (you can also scan the odd pages in a separate pass from the even ones.) there are other shortcomings in the software; i can't remember what they are now; the hope is that they will be fixed over time. and when it comes to its hardware, the scanner shines. carlo had a web-page with a pair of scans, of the same picture, one from the opticbook3600, the other from his other scanner. the difference was quite striking. this is an excellent scanner. > If you have the money and want to have > another tool in your scanner arsenal, it's not a waste. > But it's not a magic bullet, either. whether or not it's worthwhile to buy the opticbook3600 if you already have another scanner might be questionable. depends on how much your time is worth, because you'll be spending it correcting of scannos that you wouldn't have to. for anyone setting out to buy a scanner, or wanting the best, the consensus from everyone i know is that this is the one... this is really the crux of the matter. if anyone wants to say that highly-accurate o.c.r. is not possible, the first question i would have for them is whether they're using the optic3600; if they aren't, then i would chalk up their inferior results to the use of inferior hardware, and give their claim no credence. at least one highly-experienced person that i know says that, with the opticbook3600, careful attention to the scanning, proper correction of the images, abbyy finereader v7.x, and a beta version of one of the post-o.c.r. correction-programs that will be coming out soon, he's getting excellent results, ones that are superior to what he got with previous scanners, to the point he is within sight of _approaching_ perfection. as far as i'm concerned, as i've said here many times before, an accuracy-rate of 1 error every 10 pages is "good enough" to put an e-text out to the general public for "final" proofing. i am sure we can attain, and surpass, that level of accuracy... (in the past year, i heard the first report of a person who had actually achieved perfection in the scanning of an entire book; spellcheck did find one word, but it was wrong in the original.) so even if the opticbook3600 isn't "a magic bullet" by itself, it might well be the important piece of _hardware_ within a _system_ that could be described as "a magic bullet" in toto. it is too soon to _assert_ that, especially with any certainty, but it's not too soon to consider the possibility it might be so. but even _that_ is largely beside the point, which i will state once again in closing: no other scanner does better today. again, robert, thanks for getting all that feedback! -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] re: feedback report on the opticbook3600
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 May '05

16 May '05

robert said: > I have never faced this problem, > because I've never used the software > that comes with the optibook. > I just let Abbyy (ver. 5) drive the scanner right. so you're using another program to do the flipping. that was one of the options i mentioned. :+) > and with the 'Detect image orientation (during recognition)' > option selected, everything comes out right-side-up. cool. :+) i think you would think more highly of the scanner if you coupled it with version 7 of abbyy finereader. a chain is only as strong as its weakest link... -bowerbird

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An Error, eye strain, solution.
by rvijay07 16 May '05

16 May '05

I have beenr eading the E-Books as such in my browser last week. The fonts were a little extra small. Hence, after three days I endedup with red, watery and irritated eyes. Maybe I must read the E-Books by opening them in Open Office with larger fonts. Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

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Re: [gutvol-d] Question regarding naming for CSS (gutvol-d Digest, Vol 10, Issue 25_
by Lee Passey 16 May '05

16 May '05

On Sun, 15 May 2005 21:11:13 -0400, Janet Kegg wrote: > On Sun, 15 May 2005 17:50:44 -0700 (PDT), Andrew Sly wrote: > > > Ok, new topic of discussion. > > > > I'm putting the finishing touches on a book for PG. There will be > > an html file made as well as plain text. This book includes a > > decent amount of quoted letters and other documents in it. Fairly > > often, there are headers and/or footers to these which are aligned > > to be close to the right margin. > > > > So I made a simple CSS declaration for these: > > > > .dateheader {text-align: right; margin-right:2em;} > > > > However, as I progressed through, the name "dateheader" began to > > seem little inaccurate. The content is also sometimes the name of a > > place or a person, or a brief phrase. > > > > Any suggestions for a more general (but still accurate) name I > > could use for this CSS selector? > > > I suggest .alignright > > Also useful for signatures. (I actually use .ar -- I like short and > easy to type.) > > -- Janet One of the problems with marking the text with a class that describes the presentation (aside from the fact that it's not structural) is that it implies a presentation which may not actually be correct. Note that Andrew does not say that this text is to be right aligned, but "aligned to be close to the right margin." Consider the last example given (modified to be a generic block so as to not imply "paragraphness"): <div class="dateheader"> HERCULES ROBINSON.<br/> S.J.P. KRUGER.<br/> S.J. DU TOIT.<br/> N.J. SMIT.</div> In this particular case, we don't want the text to be right-aligned, we want it to be left-aligned, but shifted significantly out towards the right margin. In the pirate community I have seen these types of blocks identified as being of type "headfoot", presumably because it is primarily used for headers and footers of correspondence. I also know that TEI has an element for this type of thing (although the precise name escapes me at the moment, and I'm far to lazy to go look it up); assuming that the element name is "signature", you could use a class name, for example, of "TEI_signature", indicating that if it were a TEI element it would be the "signature" element. More important than the actual class name used is the notion that it ought to be the same as everyone else uses, so that some uniformity of naming is achieved. Myself, I'd probably opt for "headfoot", not because it's the best or most descriptive, but simply because it seems to have some currency. Now a quick word about the use of the <p> element. Despite what many people seem to think, the <p> element is _not_ a generic block element, it is to be used to indicate paragraphs. Clearly the aforementioned signature block is not a paragraph, and should not be identified as one, particulaly as there already is in common use an element designed _to be_ a generic block element: <div>. Personally, when I encounter a class name like "dateheader" which is obviously intended to move text near the right margin but maintain left alignment, I change the CSS definition to remove the alignment attribute, and instead add the style "margin-left:65%". This moves the block well to the right-side of the viewport, but also scales well when the window is resized. I also like my paragraphs to be indented, so my default CSS includes "p { text-indent:3em }". Now if you combine these two styles, and make the aforementioned signature block a <p> element, you would get something like this (imagine the whole block being moved 2/3 of the way across the page: HERCULES ROBINSON. S.J.P. KRUGER. S.J. DU TOIT. N.J. SMIT. The answer to this problem is simple: if your English professor wouldn't call it a paragraph, use the <div> tag instead.

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re: [gutvol-d] re: you guys crack me up
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 May '05

16 May '05

marcello said: > You lose. > Godwin's Law: prov. i didn't mention the h-word or the n-word. you did. i talked about george w. and republicans, and the censors on this very listserve... if i wrote a book, would you burn it? -bowerbird

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Re:making CD / DVD best of 2005--how and which books?
by bill 16 May '05

16 May '05

I know this is likely not practical but I would like to see a read-only medium where the legalese was exised out of the texts and stored in a license.txt in the root of the file system. This would save a ton of space and allow for more texts within the iso.I appreciate that the legal text has changed over the years and is not consistant for all books but a notation "Licence--#01" or whatever at the head of the book would allow you to cross-reference the license file. Surely a one line system such as this would save bandwidth and storage space while maintaining whatever legal requirements that must be met.

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Re: [gutvol-d] Heebee Jeebees on Gutenberg
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 May '05

16 May '05

jon noring said: > abbyy7 + your-sooper-dooper-tools = no-more-need-for-DP well, let's do the equation right, ok? opticbook3600 (most other scanners will start you off wrong) + careful scanning (note that this is _oh_ so very important) + image correction (deskewing and zoning regularization) + abby v7 (and using the old-book version whenever needed) + super-duper-tools, used wisely, for about 4 hours/book = an error rate of 1 error every 10 pages, good enough for + continuous proofreading (with scans available for viewing) + freshly-informed-and-motivated end-users looking for errors + a comprehensive error-detection system + a comprehensive error-reporting system + a comprehensive error-correcting system + a comprehensive system designed to foster community = a steady march toward absolute perfection in the e-texts you can sprinkle in as much or as little d.p. as you want. they are the _cooks_, and not an ingredient in the recipe. and they aren't _required_ for a meal, but they sure help! a ton of dedicated people with expertise and experience! responsible for _half_ of p.g. by the time it hits #20,000! without doubt, _the_ dynamic force in digitization today! more uplifting than google, and million-books, and kahle! (well, kahle is a large factor in their success, but still)! > but it is *equally* important to understand, and markup, > the *structures* associated with all portions of the content. > This is something that *has* to be done by human beings. > It cannot be done automagically, at least with anything near > acceptable accuracy (as shown by a few trivial examples > I posted here a while back.) blah blah blah. your examples are bull. you didn't send them here, you sent 'em to ockerbloom's list, and he would not allow my response to go through, since it destroyed your positions so thoroughly. (it was _complete_; he took it as _mean_.) repost your examples if you have the courage. given the normal degree of consideration for consistent formatting, my apps can determine the structure of a text in a matter of seconds, even on my "legacy" mac, less than the acrobat splash is up... :+) -bowerbird

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re: you guys crack me up
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 May '05

16 May '05

i told you jim didn't want to get smarter. you guys crack me up. :+) and fascism is alive and well in the united states in the 21st century, from the white house on down. but there is no shortage of soapboxes in cyberspace; and with google pulling everything together for people, it is more difficult to be invisible than to be found, so _try_ to relegate my free speech to your "protest zone". just try... -bowerbird

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