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

need volunteers in Dallas
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 13 Mar '06

13 Mar '06

Do we have two (or more) volunteers in Dallas who are tactful and fast on the uptake and totally free the week of July 1 through July 7 and can find the Hilton Anatole without getting lost? Reply directly to me--Gutenberg9443(a)aol.com.

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monday morning quarterback -- #02
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 13 Mar '06

13 Mar '06

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re: [gutvol-d] google and the translation thing
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 13 Mar '06

13 Mar '06

michael said: > Methodologies are continually being upset > by those who find some other way to do an > expensive [time or money] function for an > infinitessimal amount of the original. well, i think we're both on the same page... except you're reading it and i'm writing it... :+) (in other words, if one is interested in the actual upsetting of methodologies, then one pays some attention to them. otherwise, one waits until they play out.) google is upsetting the methodologies here. and you are counting that machine translation will become up to snuff sooner or later, and you're not interesting in the interim period. both positions are equally fine to hold... > If not, then why talk in such generalities i don't think i'm talking about "generalities" at all. in the current case, google is the entity doing it -- or so it has been reported, whether true or not -- and keith is the entity saying "it can't be done"... (well, he said "not in the next 100 or so years".) and in the other case i've mentioned -- the "dispute" between me and my "detractors" on this listserve -- there are no "generalities" either. we spent 2 years going back and forth at each other, so the positions are well-staked-out in the archives if you're curious. > It only matters when you get to the point of > ending the debating and actually doing something > the outside world can see and work with. right. except when you're playing poker, the object is to win as much money as possible with the hands you win, and to lose as little as possible with the ones that you lose. and that means you don't always show all of your cards right away... google ain't showing all their cards. and i ain't showing all mine either... but i'm starting to show _some_. so we're past the point where any of this matters any more, in the matter of me vs. this list, since pudding is being served... -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] google and the translation thing
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 13 Mar '06

13 Mar '06

keith said: > Just the opposite is the case. > Believe me as a computer linguist. i believe that the computer linguists have not been able to solve the problem. i also believe that google's research lab _will_ be able to solve it. i doubt they have "solved" it yet, and i'm sure when they do, their "solution" won't be "perfect enough" for the computer linguists, but nonetheless... > What has happened. Vaporware and results. > It simply does not work. Language can not be > sucessfully model. Languages are regularly formed, > nor well formed. and here's a great example of why it won't be "perfect". just in the sentences quoted above: there should be a question-mark after "happened"; there seems to be a missing adjective before "results";' "successfully" is not spelled correctly. and there seems to be a missing word between "regularly" and "formed"; yet despite all these shortcomings, i know exactly what you meant to say... (and i don't mean to be picking on you if english is not your first language. i only speak one language, so i am the last person to criticize anyone else on that dimension. the point is that human beings are very good at resolving the ambiguity that results from incomplete information, and we probably can't reasonably expect that of machines. but it is simply not that case that ambiguity permeates _every_aspect_ of language; clarity is not impossible.) > All AI projects so far have failed > and failure has been admitted. yes it has been, yet deep blue can still beat all but the best of the world's grandmasters... if you give up on teaching a machine "meaning", and concentrate on giving it enough rules that give the correct results most of the time, you can get very close to finishing the job you want done. of course, this approach is considered "a trick" by the artificial-intelligence people, whose aim was to "teach meaning" rather than solve a task, but that's why those artificial-intelligence people have been such a failure themselves... > When I see a OCR system that just uses raw results, > then I will bow my head in recognition of true achieve meant. a perfect example of what i just said: the objective is to get accurate o.c.r., by whatever means necessary, and _not_ to limit yourself to "raw results". if doing some voodoo gave better o.c.r., we would do it. this isn't some kind of "intellectual challenge" where we find it necessary to tie our hands behind our back; it is a practical job that needs to be done... -bowerbird

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Fwd: Reading software for PG users
by Greg Newby 12 Mar '06

12 Mar '06

Some info about speed reading software, below, for anyone interested: ----- Forwarded message from John Burgess <ad123(a)ix.netcom.com> ----- From: "John Burgess" <ad123(a)ix.netcom.com> To: <gbnewby(a)pglaf.org> Subject: Reading software for PG users Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 14:54:49 -0800 Delivered-To: gbnewby(a)pglaf.org Hello Gregory: I represent a reading software company named Rocket Reader that produces a reading tool many users of Project Gutenberg will be very interested in using. Rocket Reader not only improves reading speed and comprehension, but readers will find it very useful in pacing their reading as well. There are two modules in the software that I use for this purpose: Speed Training and Grouping Training. Speed Training flashes groups of words from the imported text on a single line. It brings the words to your eyes. The rate can be set at the desired pace and ramped up as one reads through the text. Grouping Training begins with the text covered, then reveals it in groups of words, line-by-line. The speed and groups size can be set by the reader. I would like to discuss some arrangement to make Rocket Reader available to Project Gutenberg users. Perhaps, we could donate money to the cause as people begin using Rocket Reader. I also believe that more people would use Project Gutenberg if a reading tool like Rocket Reader were available to them. You can download a free 45-day trial at https://www.rocketreader.com/school/trial_aplus.html. I am more than happy to answer any of your questions. John Burgess Ed Tech Consultant 561-889-6585 ----- End forwarded message -----

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eBooks on slashdot today
by Greg Newby 12 Mar '06

12 Mar '06

"It seems that the readers of Slashdot are the most likely early adopters of electronic books, but from posts I've seen here, it doesn't appear that many on Slashdot are e-book fans. In the hopes of sparking a discussion, I'd like to ask what keeps you personally from reading e-books?" Here are some of my guesses as to why people haven't taken up e-Books: 1. Form factor: They just prefer the feel and 'interface' of a paper book. 2. Lack of a compelling device (or perhaps lack of convergence): They don't own a reader (other than a PC or notebook) and can't take them with them. 3. Lack of content: Books they are interested in aren't available in electronic format 4. Distribution model: They don't like the DRM scheme their favorite publisher offers, or are otherwise unhappy with current offerings. Maybe lively discussion from a prospective set of customers might spur the creator of the next generation of electronic book devices. Too bad the name 'iBook' is already taken." What reason do you have for not taking up e-Books? Are they listed above or are there other reasons that you would like to add?" http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/10/1555203

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re: [gutvol-d] Commercial paper editions of PG texts
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Mar '06

11 Mar '06

is it news to anyone here that some people sell p.g. e-texts? i should hope not. those people don't irritate me. indeed, in the sense that they offer customers the option of a hard-copy printing of an e-text, i think they're providing a service. so in addition to recovering the costs of printing and binding and shipping and maintaining a business that deals with willing buyers, i think they deserve a little profit for providing that service... after all, they "own" that public-domain material just as much as you or i "own" it. i also don't even get mad if these people -- in protecting their business model -- restrict viewing the pages of their books within the google book-search system... no, i think the blame falls on _our_ shoulders, because as the people dedicated to providing full and free access to the public domain, we are failing in our mission by not ensuring that google has a no-pages-restricted entity in its book-search for each and every public-domain book that they have. and i firmly believe we should remedy that situation, soon... -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] google and the translation thing
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Mar '06

11 Mar '06

keith said: > The method is not new. It was used > successfully for wheather reports already the "method" might not be new. but what _is_ different, and undeniably so, is that google has a _huge_ corpus of text with which to implement the method now, possibly the "secret sauce" to make it work. this asset, and its bearing on the problem, should not be underestimated. and indeed, that huge corpus could exert all manner of effects on a wide variety of knowledge tasks. the information about the world represented by _billions_ of web-pages out in cyberspace could lead to the gleaning of vast knowledge. (so much so that it could become very scary.) -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] google and the translation thing
by Joshua Hutchinson 10 Mar '06

10 Mar '06

> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Keith J. Schultz" <schultzk(a)uni-trier.de> > Interesting is also, I had a Apple Newton and it recognized > my handwriting with 98-99% accuracy. Yet, most OCR systems > today will fail!! They can not be trained! I still have to find > a system today with similar performance. So much for technological > break throughs. > Not to disagree with your main points, which I agree with, but I thought I'd point out that most major OCR packages still allowing training (I'm most familiar with FineReader), but they do tend to bury deep so that you have to hunt to find out how to do it (we have people who do it regular at DP for some of the more ... creative ... fonts we find sometimes in old texts). Josh

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Early ebook history info wanted; "Alice"; Brown Corpus; Vannevar Bush; Asimov
by Jon Noring 10 Mar '06

10 Mar '06

Everyone, In doing some research on ebook history, which naturally will prominently include Project Gutenberg because of the obvious impact PG and Michael Hart has had on etexts and ebooks, I'm trying to reconstruct a fact database which includes the who, what, when, where, why and how of the various seminal events. So, I've just created a specialized Yahoo Group to collect/archive the snippets of facts that come up: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-history/ You're welcome to join and post any information you know on ebook history. Especially wanted is the pre-1990 period: commercial, academic, and public (free). We should collect this information before it is lost to the mists of time. ***** Anyway, in doing research on what is found in the early Google Groups archive on PG, Bowerbird recommended that I dig through textfiles.com, which appears to have archived a large number of ASCII texts that existed on various BBS systems of the 1980's and early 1990's (its coverage/completeness is unknown, however.) So, focusing on the first "modern" classic book that PG issued, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (text #11, officially released 01 Jan 1991), I dug through textfiles.com to see what they had. The oldest copy I found there was "alice11.txt", Millenium Fulcrum Edition 1.1, dated 1990 (by copyright claim.) See: http://www.textfiles.com/etext/FICTION/alice11.txt That was issued in the very early era when PG was still affiliated with Duncan Research. As an aside, it is interesting to note the huge differences in that early text's boilerplate compared with the present boilerplate. PG has evolved quite a bit in handling the legal aspects (particularly copyright) of its texts, which is to be fully expected. So this text is a nice historical reminder of how far PG has come in the last 16 years. I was hoping, though, to find a much older text version of "Alice". Bowerbird stated his belief that Michael Hart keypunched Alice a lot earlier than 1990/91, but so far I have not found that version, assuming it was distributed and ended up in some BBS or online archive. So, Michael, if you're reading this, did you keypunch "Alice" well before 1990, where did you distribute it, and does a copy exist somewhere? That would truly be a historical work, especially if it was "digiscribed" in the 1970's or early 80's (BBS systems began maturing in the mid- to late-1980's.) A question for others reading this: where else should I search for information on digitized books placed on BBS in the 1980's? Were there others besides Michael who "digiscribed" public domain books and texts in the 1980's and placed them online? (I plan to dig through more of the textfiles area to see what book texts are dated in the 1980's, if any, and who did them.) ***** Another interesting thing I discovered in my research -- and which some of you undoubtedly know about -- is the "Brown Corpus": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Corpus In the late-1960's, the partial/full texts of a variety of 500 works published in 1961 were keypunched for computer use (a maximum of 2000 words for each work), totalling a little over 1,000,000 words. The purpose was solely for lexicostatistics and not for direct reading. For this purpose the Brown Corpus is quite famous (enough to rate its own wikipedia article.) Only a few years later, in 1971 Michael Hart keypunched into a computer "The Declaration of Independence" for the purpose of electronic "distribution" and direct reading by others, so Michael is, as far as is now known, the first person documented to experiment with electronic distribution of readable, published digital texts. (I plan to contact the Brown Corpus people, if any are still alive, to see if there were experiments at Brown, or elsewhere, on this in the 1960's.) But nevertheless, to see major portions of published texts and books being keypunched and processed by computers in the 1960's is truly remarkable. ***** Another really cool thing, I found a Usenet message from 1987 which, in turn, is a fairly comprehensive description of an Atlantic Monthly article written by Vannevar Bush in July 1945, entitled "As We May Think". It is beyond amazing the insights Vannevar Bush had relevant to ebooks, to elibraries (like PG's) and the role of individuals and volunteers. Again, some of you have probably read Vannevar Bush's article, but for those who haven't... Usenet summary: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.mac.hypercard/msg/660f72a6e3b5f7a2?… And the actual article is reproduced here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush ***** Finally, Mark Bernstein, the founder of Eastgate, which in 1987 issued several contemporary hypertext fiction ebooks on floppy disk and CD-ROM, mentioned to me Asimov's mid-50's book "Foundation" where ebooks are implicit. Has anyone read this book and can comment on Asimov's 1950's vision for ebooks? Thanks! Jon Noring

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