October 2012 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

blah blah blah more more more blah blah blah
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 17 Oct '12

17 Oct '12

don't forget the ponies! (everyone always forgets the ponies!) and more jobs! and fewer taxes! and support for small businesses! and, for heaven's sake, lower gas prices! god bless america! -bowerbird p.s. in other words, leave sound-bites to the politicians, because they are obviously much better at it than we are.

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blah blah blah blah mcguff blah blah
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 Oct '12

16 Oct '12

don said: > Wikipedia view of the significance of McGuffey: but don, do you have correct text for the book? if you want people to do a markup demonstration, then you'll need to furnish us with the correct text. i'm not gonna glorify faulty text with good markup. and the book isn't nearly important enough _to_me_ to spend _any_ of my time correcting the text myself. and if i'm gonna do a demo with "dummy" text -- which, by the way, i am probably _not_ gonna do -- i will do it with good old stupid lorem ipsum... you like to read up on stuff, don, so read up on the need for a test-suite, and how to make one. -bowerbird p.s. note that even then, this book wouldn't be a _good_ test, because it lacks plenty of structures... p.p.s. also, it's kind of silly to be picking on .rst... in spite of marcello's difficulties, the python world has been using .rst for its documentation for years.

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a description of the book-digitization workflow
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 15 Oct '12

15 Oct '12

ok, i got a couple requests backchannel to see my website that walks you through the process of the steps that're involving in digitizing a book. (hi john, hi fish.) unfortunately, there are still some holes in the site (where the routine to handle a step isn't coded yet) and i don't know when i'll have the time to fill them. but meanwhile, i collected that 2006 series of posts i made to the "bookpeople" listserve that covers it... i've mounted the entire series here, in one file: > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/feedback2umichigan.txt if you have any questions after reading that monster, i'll be happy to answer them here... -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] no subject -- the perfect header for that post
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 15 Oct '12

15 Oct '12

don said: > I went through a little exercise to > put myself in the place of a potential volunteer - > someone who would like to contribute a book i have been waiting, very patiently, for such people to start crawling out of the woodwork, since 2006... as time goes by, i have become _less_ convinced that anyone will eventually emerge, not _more_ convinced. but in the increasingly unlikely event someone _does_, you could point them to the posts i made back in 2006 on the bookpeople listserve, where i detail the process. the "feedback to umichigan" thread is particularly good, since i cover a digitization from start to finish, in detail, but the posts titled "monday morning quarterback" and "continuous proofreading" also have additional pointers. and if a dozen such people should (miraculously) appear, let me know, and i will activate my site that allows people to walk through the digitization process step by step, with single-focus web-apps that help them negotiate each task. -bowerbird

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top 10 reasons why this current thread will go nowhere -- #7
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 14 Oct '12

14 Oct '12

#7. d.p. post-processors were recruited with "you can do it your way." #8. if your workflow has no supporting tools, you have no workflow. #9. this list has proven it can ignore a solution put right in front of it. #10. that is where these threads always go, and nothing has changed. -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] A couple examples of lost books
by don kretz 13 Oct '12

13 Oct '12

Sorry, I don't get your point. That I'm wasting your time? Sent from my Phone From: David Starner Sent: 10/13/2012 2:45 AM To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] A couple examples of lost books On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 6:33 PM, don kretz <dakretz(a)gmail.com> wrote: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Archive_of_the_City_of_Cologne > > > http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/On-the-Hunt-for-Jefferson… Er, exactly. One is the destruction of not books, but records, and the second is someone having problems buying exact copies of the exact printings that Thomas Jefferson had. There's nothing in the second article to say, of the 297 copies they don't, how many they have either a comparable early edition, or microfilm or microprint or photocopy of a comparable early edition. As they say towards the end of the article, some of them might not even exist at all, or be parts of other works that they and everyone else has copies of. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero. _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d

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A couple examples of lost books
by don kretz 13 Oct '12

13 Oct '12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Archive_of_the_City_of_Cologne http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/On-the-Hunt-for-Jefferson…

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keep yer damn paws off my markup!
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Oct '12

12 Oct '12

carlo said: > Why should you need to reverse engineer epubmaker, > when you can directly read the source code? oh yes, ignore what the program actually _does_, and try to puzzle out, by reading its source code, what it's _attempting_, and why. that's the ticket! but seriously, folks... isn't it spelled out clearly what the program does, in its documentation? oh... right... i see... ok... don said: > Or better yet find out what it wants for input > so it doesn't need to do transformations. my land, yes! engage marcello in some _dialog_! (i'd love to see that; i'd even take him out of my kill-filter to watch the fireworks on that thread.) but seriously, folks... perhaps the .html should have a comment saying: "keep yer damn paws off my markup! no transfo!" -bowerbird p.s. sorry, i've been ingesting too much huck finn.

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blah blah blah feasibility blah
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Oct '12

12 Oct '12

jeroen said: > I know my ePubs are far from perfect, as, > since I am unable to submit them to PG, > I lack some motivation to improve them. your desire to try to improve them is commendable... > I've only been able to test them on PC based readers, > which are in general far more forgiving than > the small devices they are meant to go on. they are often "more forgiving", yes, but the real issue is that the chips in our hand-held machines are weak... a lot of hacking is being done in the reader-programs to offset the major lack of power in those hand-helds. > I normally use Calibre to read, > now have also installed nook for PC and ADE. none of the people who make e-books for a living will have anything to do with calibre, not even to just "read". nook for p.c. is also quite squirrely, and sadly, so is a.d.e. (if it weren't for its d.r.m. lock-in which locks in libraries, a.d.e. would have no customers at all; readers hate a.d.e.) there is really only one .epub platform that matters at all, at least at this time, and that's apple. so you need to test on an ipad. i recall you dissing apple, as proprietary, and i understand that. but if you wanna go where people are... the other thing that most people would have to think about is whether their .epub converts nicely to .mobi by kindlegen. because kindle is where the vast majority of people are now. and if you're gonna feed your .epub to kindlegen, then you will also need to factor that fact into your work-flow as well. but since you're working from a master-file, you should not chain your conversions. instead, write mobi-friendly .html. and feed _that_ to kindlegen. separate it totally from .epub. that will also allow you to generate another version for kf8. don't listen to anyone who tells you that kf8 is just like .epub. to put it bluntly, they do not know what they're talking about. .epub has an .xhtml base, whereas kf8 jumped up to .html5. (people will tell you .epub3 does .html5; don't believe them.) > I have regenerated the file with some fixes you suggest, > and re-uploaded to the same location. a word of warning, just so you know. the state of .epub uniformity is shockingly bad. what "works" on one platform might not work on another one. at some point, you need to shrug it off when something "fails". as long as the file, as a whole, works on _one_ platform, then you've done about all you can be expected to do. seriously... (and, as i said up above, the platform to shoot for is apple's.) each of the viewer-applications -- every single one of 'em -- supports only a subset of c.s.s., and sometimes a small one, so any expectations you might have that something will work -- or "should" work, or whatever -- will need to be _verified_. so don't even bother trying to get _everything_ right, because it's just not possible at this time. and you should be told that. (but again, don't use a.d.e. as a guide, because it's the worst.) > Doesn't reproduce for me on any of the PC based readers. > Probably has to do with the width of the table. whether something works on a pc-based reader means nothing. > (but that is really a task of the rendering device, > I can only add hyphenation hints...) expectations any hand-held viewer-app will handle _anything_ are not well-founded. so you do yourself no favor by trying to shift responsibility to them. they will not honor your to-do list. so if you don't want to -- or cannot -- handle a thing yourself, you need to just tell people "sorry, you cannot have that now"... similarly, it does no good to say "i'm following the specification", since the viewer-apps don't give a tinker's damn about the spec. i know this is not what people would like to hear. but it's true. > Again, I do not observe this with the browsers I use to test. and again, you can't use a browser to test out your e-books... i know, i know, the format wonks tell you that "it's just .html", which leads you to believe that if the .html works "someplace", it should work _anyplace_, including in an e-book viewer-app, but the fact is that that does not accord with our reality today. it would be very nice if you could use a browser to test stuff. but you can't. so don't even try. you will be fooling yourself. > This must be an issue with devices. ok, so i'll say it one more time. if you really want to care about what your e-books look like, you can't use this dodge. better just to say "ok, i don't care." -bowerbird

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huckleberry pudding.003
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Oct '12

12 Oct '12

fresh pudding for your friday night dessert! :+) > http://zenmagiclove.com/huckf/wisdom.py > http://zenmagiclove.com/huckf/huckf-005.zml still no italics, but i do think the paragraphing is good. and i tried out my first pass at layering in the graphics: > http://zenmagiclove.com/huckf/huckf-001h.html room for lots of improvement, but ok for a first draft. have a nice weekend! :+) -bowerbird

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