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

monday morning quarterback
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 17 Apr '06

17 Apr '06

somebody just asked me about my monday morning quarterback series on book-digitization best practices... the series is on hold because my girlfriend got one of those printer/scanner/copier machines, and i wanted to test it out a bit before writing up new issues, so as to include some examples with what i write from now on, but i haven't gotten around to it yet... -bowerbird

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origami cut into shreds
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 15 Apr '06

15 Apr '06

here's an article on the origami in the korea times (in english): > http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200604/kt2006041317503911780.htm seems that in a press conference touting their new origami machines, three executive officials (one each from samsung, intel, _and_ microsoft) _each_ had embarrassing problems getting the machine to work properly. and then even when it did work ok, its battery ran out mere minutes into one presentation. (maybe the machine was turned on too soon, or maybe battery life in these new machines just ain't very good yet; they're running xp, which is good from the standpoint of widespread usability with existing applications, but it _is_ a very cycle-hungry o.s.) the embarrassment should send their workers back to the drawing board. -bowerbird

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Problems with image download links?
by John Hagerson 15 Apr '06

15 Apr '06

I have noted a number of comments with incoming requests for copies of the CD and DVD that state that people have had problems following the links. One comment today specifically mentioned that no one is seeding our BitTorrent link. I doubt that this is the case, but the comments occur too often to ignore. Would it be appropriate to augment the CD/DVD download page with a link to some "newbie friendly" instructions? Thank you.

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re: [gutvol-d] Catalog Subjects
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 14 Apr '06

14 Apr '06

bruce said: > support search by subject. subject-based systems have utility, there's no doubt about it, especially ones that drop the physicalistic notion that items can only be placed in one place. and as i said, it's orders-of-magnitude easier to leverage an existing system than inventing one. but if you _are_ going to invent _any_ kind of system, it should be a collaborative-filtering one, not any type of category-based one, no matter how flexible it might be. tomorrow's people won't just want to "find" a book, they will want to be pointed at the exact book they'd most like to read... any system that isn't able to account for their individual preferences will eventually end up being ignored by them, and thus wasted effort... -bowerbird

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Catalog Subjects
by Dave Doty 14 Apr '06

14 Apr '06

While we're on the subject of catalog issues... I noticed a while back that many of the books I was interested in were not always listed in the catalog subjects where they would be appropriate, or not put in appropriate subcategories. (For example, I'm a history buff, and many history texts are either not listed under history, or not listed under a subcategory of time, place, or event that would be useful to searchers.) Is there a way that we can add subjects to works and/or create new subject subcategories, or at least submit them for approval? Obviously, an attempt at a comprehensive subject system would be formidable if not impossible, but at least if volunteers/users can update individually, it can get more fleshed out. I dug around the website, but if there's a discussion for this, I missed it. Dave Doty

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bowerbird and buckycat
by dalebird 14 Apr '06

14 Apr '06

bowerbird certainly has a way with words as he finesses his way around obstacles. he reminds me of bucky the cat in _get fuzzy_. look at today's _get fuzzy_ cartoon... http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/images/getfuzzy200603663… doesn't bucky remind you of the bird? i wonder what would happen if the bowerbird met the buckycat? lots of feathers and fur flying around. just like a godzilla movie. i admire bowerbird's style. i've decided to embrace some of his personna. henceforth i'll be known as "dalebird". but my poetry sucks, unlike his. this listserve is about pg. i will contribute to real discussion once i learn more about e-books. been downloading quite a few lately from pg. great work, guys (and gals)! sorry for focusing on the bird. i promise to reform! dalebird detergentleman -- Dale Reese dalereese(a)fastmail.fm -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Accessible with your email software or over the web

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re: [gutvol-d] Catalog Subjects
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 14 Apr '06

14 Apr '06

jeroen said: > such things as Dewey or LoC carry historical load we don't need. agreed. dewey, especially, has a lot of socio-political baggage. i just read yesterday that there are something like... well here it is: > http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-sep03-04.html#dewey > > Of the hundred numbers set aside for topics concerning religion, > 88 — numbers 201-287 — are reserved for Christianity. > Jews and Moslems get just one each. But those single-digit religions > are still doing better than Buddhists (294.3) who share a decimal point > with the Sikhs (294.6) and Jains (294.4), looking up enviously at Christian > "Parish government & administration" which gets its own whole number (254). people who are interested in cataloging issues should read more of this site. it's written by one of the cluetrain manifesto people, and it's really quite good. having said all that, a benefit of numbers from existing systems is that they have already been assigned. so the work becomes getting them, not assigning them, and the former is an order of magnitude easier. > We should go for a nice, multi-facetted, multi-entry classification system for > our books, but developing adding that would be a tremendous lot of work... i'm not sure it would have to be all _that_ difficult. certainly a "first pass" could be done rather simply, and might prove to be a huge head-start. and if the system was built as a wiki, incremental improvement from there might be fairly easy to achieve as well... again, the person doing the website above is working on "latent semantic indexing", so he might be a good person to read for ideas... along these lines too, you might wanna look at this: > http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/bparchive?year=2006& post=2006-04-11,1 -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] oh, by the way, i hope you're getting a good chuckle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 14 Apr '06

14 Apr '06

jon, don't worry about it. really. i'm not concerned. it's pretty hard for me to lose my sense of humor. you can spend your time on more important things. -bowerbird

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oh, by the way, i hope you're getting a good chuckle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 14 Apr '06

14 Apr '06

oh, by the way, now even some of my comments that had _already_ been posted on the teleread blog have been removed. "for the good of the community", i'm sure... once the censorship bug bites people, they turn rabid... anyway, i hope you're all getting a good chuckle out of this! -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] don't believe everything you read on the internets
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 14 Apr '06

14 Apr '06

jon said: > That's a bunch of hooey. Anyway, it only shows you are > NOT interested in communicating in an honest, open, > cordial, give/take fashion, but simply to be obnoxious > and to see how you can "best" others. You seem to > enjoy creating a hostile environment where > your only purpose in life is to harass others. thanks for your interpretation, jon. now let's let these fine people be. -bowerbird

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