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

re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

ingram said: > You would also be entitled to give me half a cookie computed out to how many decimal-crumbs? > I haven't yet figured out how you could > give me an imaginary number of cookies, that's ok, since you've given me a negative number of imaginary cookies, so we can just call it even... :+) -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

carlo said: > No mathematician can doubt that a straight line is a curve. of course, if you're talking about a curve that _is_ a straight line, and you want to be absolutely clear, you won't _call_ it a curve, you'll call it a straight line, because that is much less ambiguous. (perhaps even infinitely less ambiguous.) and that is true whether you are a mathematician or not... -bowerbird p.s. and if you asked for "a number of cookies", and i gave you _zero_, would you be inclined to think i had granted your plea?

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 May '06

30 May '06

michael said: > I note that the press didn't give Yahoo the time of day when > their similar announcements came out about a year later. . . c'mon, michael, you act like you're a novice when it comes to knowledge about how "the news" is created in the u. s. of a. the media doesn't just "give" you attention, except superficial treatment if you're some freak; otherwise, you have to buy it. google went and bought some coverage, and the o.c.a. didn't. it's as simple as that. sheesh... -bowerbird p.s. the songs you hear on the radio? same thing -- payola.

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Re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Joshua Hutchinson 30 May '06

30 May '06

> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Michael Hart" <hart(a)pglaf.org> > I suppose you are stressing the difference between mathematicians > and economists and MBA's, without trying to be obvious about it, > but that difference is all to obvious to everyone else, and that > a "growth curve" that is "flat" is not a "curve." > Not only are you the only one that keeps trying to say a "growth curve" that is "flat" is not a "curve" ... others have come out (including myself) to say that a growth curve can be almost any shape. A growth curve can be flat, negative, or a sin wave ... and it is still a "growth curve". But since this discussion is completely pointless, can we please let it drop? (which is the real reason I posted this response ... just let this all go) Josh

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 May '06

30 May '06

dave said: > In the UK one gets coverage for being interesting to the readers :-) so _that's_ what those topless women are doing on page 3, eh? :+) (then again, i guess you wouldn't call that "coverage", would you?) > Not all the world's media acts in such a cynical money grubbing way. :-( just wait until our corporations buy your newspapers... -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 May '06

30 May '06

michael said: > A friend asked him why. . . > he said it was due to space limitations. well, my one quibble with the article was when he mentioned the google library scanning as the main impetus for resurging interest about a cyberlibrary. while that is undoubtedly true, i thought that he could have mentioned project gutenberg as well. it would've been a nod to your historic presence. however, if you want your library to move forward into the future that is being discussed, you'll need to consider the constructive criticisms i have issued. because if "books reading other books" _does_ take off, your library of standalone files which cannot will languish. you have the advantage now that most all of your files are pure ascii, so it behooves you to leverage that advantage... -bowerbird

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Re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 May '06

30 May '06

michael- some people say you are obsessed on the numbers. and/or that you overcount. but the systematic tracking helped us build your library. thanks for keeping the focus. -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 May '06

30 May '06

michael- some people say you are obsessed on the numbers. and/or that you overcoat. but your systematic tracking helped to build your library. thanks for keeping the focus. -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 May '06

28 May '06

frank said: > Even that number is a misinterpretation thanks for clearing that up for us, frank... it's clear that google has gotten their legs under them in regard to doing the scanning. let's hope that they'll get their quality-control under control very soon too... it is important to keep in mind that 100,000 books is <1% of the 10.5 million (or more) they'll do eventually; it's understandable if the process isn't up to speed yet. -bowerbird

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re: !@!re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 May '06

27 May '06

norm said: > My success with google pd books is about 30%. and > The US is doing very well in providing a large number of useless images online. see, now _that_ is the shame. _that_ is what the complainers should be complaining about. bad scans do _nobody_ any good. *** jon ingram said: > I've scanned almost a thousand books for Distributed Proofreaders, > and the Internet Archive would be a great place to permanently store > the images. Every time I've asked them on their website, however, > they either haven't replied, or have said that letting outside people > contribute material is something that they're planning on setting up, > but with no firm date. see, this is bad too. this needs to be fixed. when you people are willing to do this work, something like _diskspace_ needs to become a solved problem, not a recurring nightmare. so, who can solve this problem for you guys? what could i do to help you guys get it solved? amazon just announced a new storage system. the rates seemed pretty low to me, but i'd guess we're looking for so much space that it'd add up. especially since they charge you for pushing it in. we need some concrete figures to discern pricing, could you give us a ballpark number on that, jon? another alternative would be to store it distributedly. we could chop it up into a thousand pieces and have a network of two thousand people storing it at home. michael keeps telling us how cheap terabyte disks are. maybe we can recreate fidonet with terabytes and d.s.l. but face facts, if we've got a complete scan-set, it has to be saved. it has to. and saved without the waste of even a second thought about it. -bowerbird

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