November 2009 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: why the plain-text format is the most useful format for eliciting beauty (and more)
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

jim said: > Leading and following underscores are not plain text. sure they are. indeed, the underscore even falls in the 7-bit range. so it's as plain-text as plain-text can be, and it has a long and glorious tradition of indicating emphasis. > It is an encoding to signal to the reader that > something is missing -- namely italics. actually, i think of it as an indicator to the "rendering agent" -- a.k.a. the viewer-program -- that the surrounded text is to be displayed with emphasis. (which generally means italics.) > One could have just as well -- or as badly -- used > [i]and[/i] as the signals to indicate to the reader > that italics is missing. i used square-brackets rather than angle-brackets in the quote, but i could have used angle-brackets just like you did, jim... and yes, sir, any of those will work. indeed, .html uses the angle-brackets, and many bulletin-board systems use the square-brackets. and this is fine, because they use those brackets as _markup_, with no intention that the brackets will actually be _seen_ by any human beings. and likewise, i don't intend my underscores to be seen by human beings. just like .html, or forum markup, i expect that a viewer-app will intercede and display the emphasis just as i had intended. however -- and this is a very big _however_ -- in the case that those underscores _are_ being seen by actual human beings, it's not really all that much of a problem, because underscores are relatively non-intrusive, and they seem to provide emphasis, which is why they developed -- spontaneously -- for that purpose. the brackets, on the other hand, are terribly intrusive, and only obliterate the text to be emphasized, rather than emphasize it. likewise, the other bracket commands all serve as _obstacles_ to a human being who happens to be reading the text, and even to those human beings who have to work with the text in other capacities, such as editing it. z.m.l., on the other hand, is zen. that's why light-markup systems are taking over the world now. > I don't doubt that eventually the reader can get used to > what they're missing -- but why should they have to? they shouldn't. that's why i have programmed the viewer-apps that ensure that people don't have to read z.m.l. in its raw form. > If it were really that hard to much more closely follow > author's intent then I could understand the trade-offs. > But with today's technology it really wouldn't be hard > to do much better. i agree. we can do much better than what we have been handed. -bowerbird

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New mobile devices page (pls. proofread)
by Greg Newby 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

The number of requests to help@ for kindle and similar device support has grown quite a lot, and so I finally spent some time writing a how-to for this topic. Your feedback is requested: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:MobileReader_Devices_How-To I included a link to James Adcock's magic catalog, but am not sure whether this is updated regularly/automatically. I would also be happy to link to good external content. The main thing I don't want to do it provide all the details for all devices, since that will be hard to verify and maintain. While this page is in the protected content area, there is already a page set up for user-contributed content, where I would love to see some more detailed advice on specific devices, conversion programs, etc.: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Project_Gutenberg_Wiki TIA. Greg

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Re: it's that time of year again
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 Nov '09

30 Nov '09

rothman said: > Same old troll, BB ;-). right. i deal in facts, and you call me names, and somehow it's _me_ who is the "troll" here. ;+) > My big point here oh please. your "big point" is *censored*. <- fact! and i've told people precisely _why_ it's *censored*, and you have no rejoinder. you don't even _try_ to mount a counter, because you don't have one. > My big point here is that schools and libraries > and the rest of us should be preparing-- your message -- whether you know it or not -- is that people should _wait_, because the tech is "right around the corner", but not _here_ yet. so everyone is sitting around waiting, while google raids the library. thanks for the catatonia, david... > the capabilities will be coming sooner or later. your message is that they will be coming _later_. let's contrast that with the message of michael hart, which is that "we can make e-books happen right now." > Glad BB himself has been so 100 percent infallible, > especially about ePub (Sony signed up for ZML lately?). i already have my response written concerning all that... i'm waiting to send it until people get back from holiday. suffice it to say for now that you're a tool of the industry, david, the corporate dinosaur publishing industry, and there is no future for the dinosaurs, zero future at all... sony will never sign up for z.m.l., because they can't slap d.r.m. on it, so they chose the publishers' .epub instead... that's quite some victory, david. just like the "victory" you had a decade ago, when microsoft slapped d.r.m. on the earlier version of .epub. now this time it's adobe, but the story will turn out the very same way, just watch. but oh well, the executives bought themselves some more quarters, even if profitability wasn't as good as they hoped. > As for E Ink, it's just one of several possibilities out there. > My pointer in fact was to Pixel Qi. yeah, see how quickly you disown your own past, david. you promoted e-ink unceasingly, for years and years, in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of your blog entries. and now pixel qi is about to prove that you were _wrong_ about e-ink being "the future" that was "around the corner". so you ditch e-ink as if you never knew it. you chase every technology that sends you a press release, instead of having the real-world discipline that requires working models, or at least something more than vapor... -bowerbird

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Re: Some genuine fodder for Michael's ire [Re: Re: it's that time of year again]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Nov '09

29 Nov '09

greg said: > It has greatly appreciated. i'm gonna talk about formats in the coming week, but i'm curious as to how .epub advocates evaluate the quality of these automatic conversions to .epub. -bowerbird

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Re: Some genuine fodder for Michael's ire [Re: Re: it's that time of year again]]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Nov '09

29 Nov '09

david rothman said: > As for disrupting this list, keep in mind that out of the blue, > without my attacking anyone, Bowerbird launched a strike on me > and wants to do this every Thanksgiving. Great for holiday cheer, huh? it wasn't "out of the blue". it was based on a bet from 4 years ago. you tried to escape from an unpleasant accounting of the realities by saying "check back in a year and see what it looks like then..." i set the terms of the bet at 5 years, precisely because i wanted to demonstrate clearly how awful your "predictive power" actually is. not only did you continue to be wrong one year later, but you were also wrong 2 years later, and then wrong again 3 years later, and -- now -- wrong yet again 4 years later. wrong wrong wrong wrong. so yeah, i'll check in next year at this time, to conclude the bet... you seem to think that anyone who dares to check your _accuracy_ is "launching a strike" on you. you want to spew your thoughts out without having any do any checks. you don't want to be challenged. and hey, i don't blame you. if my track-record was as bad as yours, i wouldn't want anyone bringing up pesky issues like "accuracy" either. and if my grasp on the issues was as tenuous as yours, i wouldn't want to engage in any dialog either, because it would be exposed that i couldn't really defend my position with rational arguments. you want to dish out platitudes and be praised for doing just that, instead of doing the difficult work of examining the hard trade-offs. you want to dangle the shiny in front of people, and not have to face the uncomfortable fact that it just makes them dissatisfied with the current reality of the situation on the ground and in the marketplace. you call my posts "rants", but that kind of doubletalk doesn't work, and you're so far outside your comfort zone you don't even realize it. -bowerbird

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Re: Some genuine fodder for Michael's ire [Re: Re: it's that time of year again]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Nov '09

29 Nov '09

michael said: > I haven't FAILED to be an advocate, I have REFUSED. . . . bravo. -bowerbird

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meanwhle, more hype on screen technology
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Nov '09

29 Nov '09

meanwhile, because it happens constantly, here is some more hype on screen technology, from one of the latest entries on the teleread blawg: > http://www.teleread.org/2009/11/28/flexible-ereader-screens-shown-in-taiwan/ anyone care to bet how long before this technology comes to market at a price affordable to end-users? -bowerbird

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Re: Some genuine fodder for Michael's ire [Re: Re: it's that time of year again]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Nov '09

29 Nov '09

it's fun to watch rothman sputter when his dale-carnegie doubletalk isn't working in a certain situation... it's even more funny when he tries to pull it back from the edge, by finding "something that everyone can agree on", and engages in another dose of doubletalk. yes, david, we all agree that the government is bad when it extends copyright and tries to keep all of those shady dealings out of sight... and, by the way, isn't this the same government your "teleread" proposal wants to put in charge? michael hart didn't seek a grant to pay for the digitization of books under project gutenberg, or try to suck at the money teat of big business. hart went directly to the people. smart choice. -bowerbird

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[SPAM] re: Re: it's that time of year again]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Nov '09

28 Nov '09

rothman said: > Same old troll, BB ;-). right. i deal in facts, and you call me names, and somehow it's _me_ who is the "troll" here. ;+) > My big point here oh please. your "big point" is bullshit. <- fact! and i've told people precisely _why_ it's bullshit, and you have no rejoinder. you don't even _try_ to mount a counter, because you don't have one. > My big point here is that schools and libraries > and the rest of us should be preparing-- your message -- whether you know it or not -- is that people should _wait_, because the tech is "right around the corner", but not _here_ yet. so everyone is sitting around waiting, while google raids the library. thanks for the catatonia, david... > the capabilities will be coming sooner or later. your message is that they will be coming _later_. let's contrast that with the message of michael hart, which is that "we can make e-books happen right now." > Glad BB himself has been so 100 percent infallible, > especially about ePub (Sony signed up for ZML lately?). i already have my response written concerning all that... i'm waiting to send it until people get back from holiday. suffice it to say for now that you're a tool of the industry, david, the corporate dinosaur publishing industry, and there is no future for the dinosaurs, zero future at all... sony will never sign up for z.m.l., because they can't slap d.r.m. on it, so they chose the publishers' .epub instead... that's quite some victory, david. just like the "victory" you had a decade ago, when microsoft slapped d.r.m. on the earlier version of .epub. now this time it's adobe, but the story will turn out the very same way, just watch. but oh well, the executives bought themselves some more quarters, even if profitability wasn't as good as they hoped. > As for E Ink, it's just one of several possibilities out there. > My pointer in fact was to Pixel Qi. yeah, see how quickly you disown your own past, david. you promoted e-ink unceasingly, for years and years, in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of your blog entries. and now pixel qi is about to prove that you were _wrong_ about e-ink being "the future" that was "around the corner". so you ditch e-ink as if you never knew it. you chase every technology that sends you a press release, instead of having the real-world discipline that requires working models, or at least something more than vapor... -bowerbird

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Re: it's that time of year again]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Nov '09

28 Nov '09

jon richfield said: > Some months ago BB intimidated me with dire descriptions of Kindle > (or was it epaper in general?) slowness, contrast and resolution. ok, first of all, jon, any time you are "intimidated" by what i say, you can just push the "delete" button. and thus you will have vanquished (and vanished) the intimidation. with one finger. instantly! see how easy it can be? *** second of all, i'm quite sure i didn't give any "dire descriptions". because the truth of the matter is, e-ink is just fine for many people. you have to try it out, and see for yourself, whether the contrast and the resolution and the speed of the software works for you... or not... like i said, it's fine for some people. and not fine for other people. and nobody can tell you whether it'll be fine for you, except you... now, in terms of judging whether it's a useful technology or not, you have to listen to the people who actually own the technology, and most people who actually own the kindle love their machines. so hey, i'm happy for them... what i _probably_ said is that -- until the technology was out and actually being used by people -- we had no idea of its limitations. as the old saying goes, the only product that has no limitations is the one that hasn't been released yet. that's why it's so _stupid_ to go on and on about unreleased technology, because only a fool or an idiot would believe the hype and marketing of a press release. so one e-ink was released, we released that there were many areas in which it was suboptimal, and we hadn't been prepared for that. because before it was released, e-ink was a "magic" technology that had no flaws. it was going to be all perfect, and very inexpensive, and e-reader-machines were right around the corner, for just $50. this is the kind of bullshit in which you find yourself knee-deep when you start dealing with speculation instead of released tech. and when someone is flooding the e-book scene with this bullshit, we need to call them on it, and tell them clearly to stop doing that. -bowerbird

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