February 2006 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Related project of interest: Librivox
by Gardner Buchanan 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

I happened to hear Hugh McGuire interviewed on CBC Radio One yesterday. He was talking about an interesting project that I hadn't previously known. I though I'd mention it here in case anyone else is interested: http://www.librivox.org/ LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then we release the audio files back onto the net (podcast and catalog). Our objective is to make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project. ============================================================ Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana(a)rogers.com> Ottawa, ON FreeBSD: Where you want to go. Today.

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We have a picture of Mohammed in hell
by Marcello Perathoner 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

... in the Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated by Gustave Doré in Canto XXVIII: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8789 -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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pure-tone range
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

michael- our signal-to-noise ratio has deteriorated, so let's elevate this back to pure-tone range, ok? tell me exactly what you would like from me -- in the form of reports, examples, or whatever -- and specify how many of them you'd like, and i'll do my best to provide, or tell you why i can't oblige... :+) -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] blah blah blog
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

michael said: > First things first. . .before changing ALL files, > let's try changing SOME files, eh? before changing _some_ files, let's try _one_, eh? my z.m.l. version of alice in wonderland has been up for a while now. consider it submitted to p.g. failing that, you could do the minimum necessary, which is to eliminate of one extra carriage return. that's what some of these changes boil down to, a carriage-return added here, or deleted there, brackets put around a footnote, things like that. and i could generate a list of tens of thousands of such changes, involving thousands of e-texts and therefore, probably twice that many files... your whitewashers will tell you their workflows cannot handle a spectrum of changes that vast. at least that is my understanding of the situation, one that indicates that your grasp of it is tenuous. but i enjoy it when someone proves me wrong! :+) so, if i see you are willing to fix that _one_ file, then i can generate _some_ more, if you want... but your people still haven't gotten around to correcting the errors i noted on "a secret garden". (at least i hope they "haven't gotten around to it" yet, because if they did actually act on my report, their performance was dismaying, even abysmal.) and the errors i found on "swiss family robinson" are _still_ there. so it certainly seems to me that your error-correction machine ain't working well. > That's the way to get yourself some volunteers. michael, i don't know how many times i need to say this to you before you finally "get" it -- but i am not _looking_ for any volunteers. i simply don't need any; i'll be happy to do the job myself. (the task is largely automated by now, so the only need for a human is in the quality-control arena, and i'm quite happy to leave that up to end-users.) now, if _you_ want to find some volunteers who will help make _your_ library consistent, then i _might_ be willing to help you out in that regard, but your _first_ task would be to convince yourself that your whitewashers will actually support the drive. > Or, barring that, you are welcome to download ALL > files you can get your hands on, by hook or crook, by hook or crook? they're all available for downloading. > and work on them to your heart's content or form, > and republish them here, or elsewhere. i believe you need to check with your whitewashers before you offer to "republish them here". but yes, republishing elsewhere is precisely what i will do, once i get around to making them all consistent... > As always, you are welcome to address all of the > Whitewashers individually or as a collection, to > make whatever point[s] you wish. i'm "addressing" them by posting to this listserve... whether or not they choose to engage, who cares? as long as i go down on the record, i'm satisfied... > The one thing about volunteers, you have to > SELL them on your ideas. if i ever decide i need volunteers for something, i'll keep that in mind. -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] blah blah blog
by Joshua Hutchinson 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Bowerbird(a)aol.com > and i could generate a list of tens of thousands > of such changes, involving thousands of e-texts > and therefore, probably twice that many files... > That isn't how it works. You can't just generate a list of "fixes" and hand it off to someone else to do the hard work. YOU need to do the work if it is something you feel needs to be done. Take a file, fix all the problems, upload the fixes to PG and the file will get reposted. If you want to include your "list" with the upload, that's fine. It'll will allow some easier double-checking of your work. I doubt you'll ever come close to doing this, since it would be useful work and I've never seen you do any, but that's what the process is. Josh

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] blah blah blog
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

josh said: > You can't just generate a list of "fixes" and > hand it off to someone else to do the hard work. well first, it _is_ acceptable -- and _perfectly_ so -- for a person to submit a simple report of an error (or even a complex report of thousands of errors) without generating all the "corrected" files themself. indeed, i'd guess _most_ error-reports are just that. (and surely, for someone who might find one typo, you don't want to receive a full set of files from them, you just want 'em to tell you where the typo is located.) but even aside from that, josh, don't split hairs. i could hand the whitewashers "a list of fixes" _and_ updated files _and_ complete changelogs _and_ the program i used to complete the task, which they could continue to use in the future to check new files to ensure they're consistent. and those whitewashers _still_ couldn't process thousands of updated e-texts in one fell swoop, not under their present updating policy, which calls for them to run through all their checks to move an e-text to the new directory structure... which was my point. didn't you get it? meanwhile, i can generate the new files _myself_ -- without the hassle of an obtuse workflow -- and host a library that _does_ have consistency, with files up and available as soon as they're fixed. > YOU need to do the work > if it is something you feel needs to be done. i don't care if project gutenberg's e-texts have their inconsistencies removed or not. i _do_ want a library that's free of inconsistencies, but i anticipate i will have to remove them myself. and i have no issues with doing that, as i have said. this is completely different, however, from drawing your attention to the fact of these inconsistencies, and raising your awareness of troubles they cause. in other words, i am doing y'all a great big favor by pointing out a deficiency in your output that could be corrected with a minimum of effort on your part, but would _greatly_ increase the value of your output. the only problem is, y'all would rather take offense than take a simple look at a problem in your methods. but again, if i am wrong on this, and the whitewashers will implement wholesale changes to get consistency, and make a commitment to ensure future consistency, then i _certainly_ hope someone will say that directly... -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] blah blah blog
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

walter said: > vapourware call it whatever you want, walter. i call it "banana-cream"... -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] blah blah blog
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

michael said: > However, my response is NOT in jest, > we will be only to happy to help, > as with all such suggested projects. let me focus on this constructive point, and get to the rest of your reply later... last i heard, your whitewashers want to move files to the new directory structure when they do any corrections to 'em, thus can't update tons of files in one fell swoop. if that has changed, do please let me know. besides, if there's no commitment to make new files consistent, there isn't that much point to making the older ones consistent. (you stop a spill before cleaning the mess.) but if that has changed too, please tell me. i believe you are open to change, michael. i don't believe that your whitewashers are. but again, if i'm wrong, just let me know... i first made these points when you were celebrating the 10,000 e-texts plateau. you will be at 20,000 before you know it, with the mess twice as big as it was then. i expect in 3 years it'll be twice as big again. -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] blah blah blog
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

ian said: > We'll just have to take your word > for how good these "routines" are then. well, until i release the app, yep. or you can not believe it, don't matter much to me. you're obviously new around these parts, as these points have been made before, so i'll 'splain you something simple here. i'm not asking you to "take my word". i'm telling you that you can prove this for yourself, to yourself, by yourself... write the routines. you'll see they work. keep track of the time you spend doing it. after it ends up as a few years of your life, you'll think it's worth a piece of change too. how big the piece of change depends upon how much you think a few years of your life is worth. so, how much _is_ your life worth? > You're kidding right ? Your code might be > fantastic but you're deluding yourself if you think > anyone will pay you six figures for a text processing app. it's a marketplace. sellers charge what they want. buyers decide what price they will pay. if the two find a mutual ground, the sale will be made, and if they do not, then no sale will be made that day. ok? for the record, though, amazon.com bought mobipocket for about 3.5 million dollars, u.s., according to estimates. by my count, that is 7 figures. > Although with an all-volunteer project > its hard to define and enforce the format. i think you'd agree my format is an easy one, and could be "enforced" with little difficulty. it's actually very close to the format that is even now being "enforced", in most regards. judge for yourself, though, by reviewing the test-suite that i made, which is available here: > http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/bowerbird/test-suite/test-suite.zml > I assume the pdf there is generated > from the zml ? via what mechanism? > a single conversion step > or via somthing like latex ? inside of the z.m.l. viewer-program, in which you have already set your preferences according to your desires (on things like font, textsize, leading, and many others), just print to a .pdf driver, and the .pdf will be created... > Any reason to not go with one of the > existing plain-text markup languages > that already exist and have > existing conversion tools ? > reST, asciidoc and others. none of them were targeted directly enough for books. z.m.l. was derived from actual hands-on experience with the conventions present in the project gutenberg e-library. this gave me a sharp focus at exactly the right perspective; i was able to implement every thing i needed, and no others. however... given my experience now, i think i could advise any of those other methodologies on how they might do what z.m.l. does. > Is there a format description for z.m.l ? well, yes, but i see it's not online. so i'll put a copy up. if you're in a hurry, you can join the viewer beta-test -- send an e-mail to zml_talk(a)yahoogroups.com -- and download the most recent viewer, which will have a copy of "the 11 rules of z.m.l." contained within it... you could also check the archives of this listserve, as i've sent it here on a couple different occasions. but if you can wait a couple days, i'll put it up online. > Do you have existing tools/parsers for z.m.l with > freely available code? Or is that another 6 figures ? :) roll your own. the rules are very simple. > and how is this different from what gutenmark does ? > Apart from hopefully fewer errors in the html or latex output ? gutenmark gave up because of the inconsistencies i point out. thus, it's an excellent example of what _could_ have been, if only a simple concession to attain a minimal amount of consistency had been made, and acted upon. you can judge the quality of my .html versions by looking at the "alice" example that i cited earlier... (i won't pretend my .html converter is finished yet, but i also won't pretend to care all that much about getting it done, since a web-browser is a bad viewer. but it's important to support the internet in general, and equally important to support the p.d.a. option.) > Surely this is competely orthogonal to the choice of markup language. the point is that you don't need heavy markup to get a kick-ass high-performance e-book experience, so it is a mistake to pay the price of doing heavy markup. > uh - just because you use whitespace > instead of <h> to indicate headings > doesn't mean its not markup. well, it means that it's _zen_ markup. because you can't see it. it's invisible. and as such, it doesn't muck up the reading experience, so it's easy to edit. clean, simple, graceful, all the good stuff. compared to this elegance, markup is cruft. > oh and the fact that you've named it > Zen *markup* language :) oh, so i see you _did_ get the joke. that's good, i was a bit worried there. :+) -bowerbird p.s. "z.m.l. -- it's two steps better than x.m.l."

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] blah blah blog
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 02 Feb '06

02 Feb '06

michael said: > I guess you have a different way of interpreting what bowerbird says. i think you're getting some of the references mixed up. but it would be too complicated to explain. > I keep encouraging him to encourage others, rather than to discourage encouragement is in the eye of the beholder... > and that this is more likely to get him what he says he wants. once again, this is not a matter of "what i want". to continue to operate under that erroneous assumption is to be misguided... when i want a consistent e-library, i will rework your e-texts. it's no big deal. in my spare time, i can probably do it in a year. no big deal. if you gave me a dozen volunteers, it'd be a month. (yes, i say that jokingly, since i know you don't "give" volunteers; they don't take your orders; _they_ decide what they want to do.) > Personally, I worry that he might prefer to proven right by history, > rather than by carrying his own plans to fruition when i am proven right by history, others will carry my plans to fruition. or, as is more likely, when others stumble upon the same truths that i have stumbled upon, and such truths prove to be the generative force for the "plans" of those people in the future, _then_ _they_ will make _their_ plans come to fruition... and i'll be as much of a footnote in those plans as ian feldman, if either of us is included at all... you can't stop an idea whose time has come. it's too grandiose to think these are "my" ideas. there is a truth out there -- that a document's structure can be indicated via plain-text means and "markup" that is "invisible" -- and anyone who taps into this truth is equally empowered. i have told people here about this truth, hoping that they would grasp it, but they have made it totally clear that they do not _wish_ to grasp it. fine. no problem. it would have made your life easier, but you _can_ live your life without it... nevertheless, other people _will_ discover it. other people already _have_ discovered it, and they are in the process of "making it work", so i'm not worried about the future, not in any way. (well, i'm worried about the very real chance that human beings will bring about our own extinction, but if/when that happens, our markup systems will be one of the last things we'll need to worry about.) > at least with the army of volunteers we have at hand. i don't think you have _any_ volunteers for the job of making the library more consistent. and if there is no call for them, from the "top" of this bureaucracy, you never will have any, either. but if i am wrong, i can certainly provide any such volunteers with tools. but remember, the favor they'd do is for you, not me. > I do hope that he fines someone > to pay for his work to the tune he hopes interesting slip there -- "fines someone"... :+) > and that he, or someone in a similar position, will > eventually create something along the order of his dreams. did i mention i'm in the process of putting up lots of examples? > I just think it would/could/should be now not later, and did i mention i'm putting up lots of examples _now_? > and via volunteers rather than via some billionaire who > gives him an enterprise grant, venture capital, etc. i'm fine with volunteers. i'm fine with a billionaire's money. i'm fine sitting alone in my girlfriend's spare room with her g4. i have no complaints. i enjoy life. and smile when i write posts. :+) > We've seen the billionaire approach to eBooks, and, frankly, > it will be hard to imagine that such approaches could not > have had any worse effect on the eBook world, even had that > been their intention. i quite agree. and if i do take a billionaire's money, it will be because i know i am able to do the job right. (or it _could_ just be because i _want_ to take a billionaire's money. but even then, i'll make sure i do no harm to the future of e-books.) > That said, I/we can still hope the change that in the future. . . . if changing me is part of your plan, i'd say it might be easier to change your plan instead... ;+) -bowerbird

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