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

Has anyone noticed that the gutindex files for this year haven't been updated since January?
by Jared Buck 03 Jul '09

03 Jul '09

I'm perfectly willing to help update these files if the person who usually does the gutindex file updating doesn't have time to do it. I get all the latest postings of new books and it would be an easy thing to do to look through the posted-list archives to grab all the listings, and insert them into the gutindex file. Jared -- Yogi Berra <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/y/yogi_berra.html> - "I never said most of the things I said."

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Re: Has anyone noticed that the gutindex files for thisyear haven't been updated since January?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jun '09

29 Jun '09

there's something here about how a service can be discontinued without any public discussion or decision or even _notification_... but i'm not too inclined to figure out what it all "means", since nobody'd be interested in the outcome of that analysis anyway. the rough image i'm getting, though, is a bunch of volunteers who spin themselves off to a place where they are very busy making something that nobody uses any more, because the volunteers lost touch with the feedback loop from the public. -bowerbird ************** A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1221823281x1201398699/aol?redir=htt… bcd=JunestepsfooterNO62)

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Guidelines for putting "PG" on own compilations
by Greg M. Johnson 28 Jun '09

28 Jun '09

Hi. I think there was a Tim Robbins novel where someone got into all kinds of trouble by indexing. That's what I've done: I made my own compilation DVD. I stuck to html files and have the material categorized by genre. I've got grown-up adventure (Verne/ Conrad), kid adventure (Appleton/ Hope), books for small children (Garis), education primers, how-to manuals, mystery, drama, general literature, natural science, physical science, religion: Christian, religion: Other & philosophy, 3 kinds of history, and magazines. about 3000 titles. I started with a custom DVD right off the Alaska server but completely revamped the index and added a hundred or so more ones. I'm considering giving physical copies of these out to everyone I've ever met and encouraging them to do the same. I of couse have not modified any of the html files provided by PG. Q: What are the guidelines for putting "PG" on the index and cover page? I can imagine scenarios where I rudely don't give you enough credit, or rudely get you blamed for my taste & choices in the idex. (I've split religion into "Christian" and "Other & Philosophy", as one example.) -- Greg M. Johnson http://pterandon.blogspot.com

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Project Gutenberg Facebook page (fwd)
by Michael S. Hart 28 Jun '09

28 Jun '09

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:57:18 -0400 From: Rachael Kauffung <rachaelakauffung(a)gmail.com> To: hart(a)pobox.com Subject: Project Gutenberg Facebook page Hello, I started a facebook group for PG some time ago, with the intention of informing my friends of the website. It has since grown to almost 850 members with me doing absolutely nothing with the group. I was wondering if someone at PG might want to adopt the page and run it. These members are purely a result of viral spread, so I think there is potential to extend this in a way very beneficial to PG. I have had a number of members tell me they would be interested in proofreading and helping with the project. Please let me know how you would like to proceed. Thanks! Rachael Kauffung

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Re: Kindle DX, etc.
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Jun '09

27 Jun '09

jim said: > at some point in time in the near future > using human beans to make txt files > will no longer represent the best technological approach > to making PD books available to the public considering the millions of public-domain books google already offers up, i'd say that that time has already come. most people only want to read the books, and perhaps extract small passages of text every once in a while, and google's production process facilitates those activities... it'd be nicer if all their text was completely cleaned, but one has to appreciate how far they have moved the bar... there's no longer a pressing need for volunteers to do this. of course, many of us enjoy it, so we'll continue doing it... > some Google books have only page images no OCR at all. can you give me the u.r.l. of some of those? > where does google do a "slice and dice" -- > can you provide a pointer? in their mobile interface. for example: > http://books.google.com/m#Read?id=rYIhAAAAMAAJ&page_num=123 click on any bit of text to reveal the underlying scan... then click again to toggle back to the digital text copy. -bowerbird ************** An Excellent Credit Score is 750. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222585065x1201462786/aol?redir=htt… bcd=JuneExcfooterNO62)

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Re: Kindle DX, etc.
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Jun '09

27 Jun '09

jim said: > the Google Books approach of simply digitizing the page images of a book > is a perhaps reasonable approach where the readership for that book is > small compared to the effort required to take the Gutenberg approach of > producing a clean digital text. If one is going to simply digitize the > page images of a book then one needs a reader with a screen big enough > to display that page image legibly -- unless one imagines a technology > to slice and re-dice the page image in an intelligent manner so that > snippets of the page image fits readably onto an iPhone. ok, where do i begin here? just pick a spot and jump in, i guess... i believe the google book "settlement" should be rejected. it gives far too much to google -- a virtual monopoly -- and would thus shut down experimentation prematurely... but what you have said here, jim, doesn't do google justice. you seem to think that google is just scanning the books, and displaying those scans to people. that's not the case. google is doing o.c.r., and is using the results of that o.c.r. further, they show indications they'll be cleaning that o.c.r. contrary to what you have implied here, it does _not_ take a great deal of time or effort to create "a clean digital text". i have shown here -- repeatedly -- that the vast majority of o.c.r. errors can be corrected with little or no human effort, using rigorously-applied computerized correction routines. and google knows how to create, test, and refine those routines. i have also shown here -- again, repeatedly -- that one attains high accuracy by comparing different digitizations to each other, and minimizes the human attention required in the process... google can use this, as it is scanning lots of books multiple times. so why does distributed proofreaders work so hard to do its books? because it's stupid, with its head in the sand, ignores what i prove, and doesn't mind wasting the energy and time of its volunteers... next, one doesn't have to "imagine" a technology that will slice and re-dice a page-image to fit it onto a certain display-size... bill janssen over at parc demonstrated such a system long ago. and if you look, google is currently using its own variant of that. finally, there are a lot of page-images that fit nicely on an iphone even without being sliced and diced. for instance, navigate here: > http://z-m-l.com/go/myant/myantp123.png this page-image displays quite nicely on an iphone, thank you. -bowerbird ************** Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000004)

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respite
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 26 Jun '09

26 Jun '09

i backed off of this listserve for a little while to see if anyone else would step up to the plate and do some work to try and make it a lively place. but no... just a lot of tumbleweeds blowing through. so i'll be coming back soon and doing my fair share... -bowerbird ************** Stay connected and tighten your budget with a great mobile device for under $20. Take a Peek! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100122638x1222405996x1201457362/aol?redir=htt…)

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Well, it has kindled a lot of discussion, hm?
by Jon Richfield 21 Jun '09

21 Jun '09

First, thanks to all who responded in one way or another. You know who you are (some of the time, I hope!) It seems that Kindle does do most of what I want in ways that I could find usable. My money and I are a bit busy at the moment, so I shall not order one this moment, but my interest is growing, Amazon and rivals are hyperventilating increasingly as I dither over my choice. How long? How long??? You know, I am a bit puzzled about one thing (among many others of course). For most part epaper seems to be the least power hungry choice (not that I am a tree hugger; I am of course, anyway, but in this connection less power means longer battery life etc.) but there is another option that, though it is not power-independent, should get by on very little. I know it exists, but much as epaper did for a couple of decades, it seems to be languishing, or at least limited to special purposes. What I am thinking of is some kinds of heads-up displays that can be worn like glasses, seeing the "screen" through some sort of lens system. I should think them to be perfect for reading etc, and afaik they are mainly LCD based, and accordingly power-conservative. They should be usable hands-off whether walking, driving, lying down, or in the dark. Potentially a 640X 480 or even 800X600 should be cheap. With a modest memory and processor modules they should be nearly everything the Kindles are, or more so. Or am I too optimistic? What am I missing? BB, how about detumescing my optimism? Walter and Michael made good points about screen sizes and changing standards, but the reason for my interest is that it is all very well to be satisfied with tiny screens, but it does bad things to one's capacity for effortless, comfortable, non-injurious, reading for hours and hours. Alex made a good pitch, but I think that between simple cell-phone costs and few-inch screens, as Jim pointed out, Kindle currently sounds like the best bet, though his HTC sounds nice for those who need it. BB made some good points as usual, but some rather unconvincing ones also as usual. Eg: " but don't focus on _books_ per se, because the number of book-readers in the population is very small. (and it's getting even smaller every day.) book-readers won't drive this revolution.". See, BB, I do indeed focus on book reading, not because I am selling, but because I read. And reading I may buy. Only if I change my market do I change my focus. I don't much care about the other things the gadgets can do because I don't do them much. That is why my cell phone is only marginally younger than my microscope. It does what I want of a phone, which is damned little. If it offered reading for me as well without a fancy lens attachment, it would be fatiguing, which is where the charm of epaper or the heads-up display would lie. Does anyone know why such heads ups are not common yet? Note that they need not be dedicated machines, any more than PCs are. You say: " i always said this idea was ridiculous, because a reader has to have a screen and a chip and an operating system, and those are the most expensive parts of any computer, so if you're going to pay for those for a dedicated reader, you might as well get a full-fledged computer instead..." But you see BB, we do not all have your thews and sinews and built-in power sockets. We cannot sit and read in the train or in bed or on a hilltop and read a comfortably sized screen or image weighing a couple of kilos for hours on end. So far epaper has it all its own way. I take your point about its price ans a specialised device, but why should it be specialised? It looks to me like a perfectly usable screen for many purposes. Maybe more than LCD...? Who knows, I might yet still make up my mind before i can afford a kindle... Cheers all, Jon

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Guidelines for putting "PG" on own compilations
by Greg M. Johnson 17 Jun '09

17 Jun '09

Hello. I am making my own DVD project. I downloaded one of the custom-complied DVD's off of the Alaska server. I added another 50 titles and deleted a couple hundred. The main customization is that I've put together my own INDEX. I've grouped the works into about twenty genres of my own choosing and made it stylistically a bit more like your SciFi CD than the typical Alaska-server custom DVD. I want to give it away for free to everyone I meet and encourage them to do the same. But how do I identify it? The question of tact and/or legality is how should I identify the collection. Of course I would not modify any of the individual HTML files provided by PG for each book. I'm imagining if I were not to give PG enough credit for the compilation, I'll break one rule. It seems fair to give PG some kind of credit in my index for having created the book files themselves. But isn't there a Tom Robbins novel where someone gets into trouble by indexing? I'm imagining if I were not to take enough responsibility for the compilation, I could get folks mad at PG. For example, I chose to put a book on Mormonism into a category of "RELIGION-- OTHER" instead of "RELIGION-- CHRISTIAN." Somehow with my search terms I ended up with a book on Eugenics, which I find quite evil, but I'm wondering if I would ever be able to find and delete every possible controversial title from my selection. I was also considering putting the HTML code for your Paypal link on the index, is that good or bad? And to sum it up, ultimately, if I make my own compilation DVD, would PG want it for distribution? -- Greg M. Johnson http://pterandon.blogspot.com

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Re: Kindle DX + Google Books
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Jun '09

12 Jun '09

jim, thanks for the report... -bowerbird ************** Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown000000…)

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