- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Cuckoo Bird [-Re: tofu turkey and cracked crystal balls]
by David H. Rothman 02 Jun '10

02 Jun '10

Actually, Bowerbird, if you count used PDAs, the $50 computer is already a reality as I've pointed out before. I won't claim a Bowerbird level of infallibility, far from it, but consider this little prediction that I published in Computerworld in 1992--about hardware in 2020: --Storage of at least a gigabyte of data --"A thin, lightweight, detachable screen that contains the CPU and memory chips, which are the true guts of the computer." --The ability to add on a keyboard. --Data speeds of 1M bit --"Millions of choices from books, newspapers, magazines and professional journals." http://www.teleread.com/computerworld.htm Post iPad, my prediction seems if anything on the conservative side. Darn. I should have used more "hype." I remember some people at the time saying that database searching couldn't accommodate the national digital library system I had in mind. Well, we don't have TeleRead yet. But we certainly have Google, and maybe TeleRead will happen eventually. Meanwhile I'd suggest that you and your pals repair your own crystal balls, given the rise of the standard ePub format for e-books. For newbies: Why does Bowerbird's silliness go on, year after year? Well, he wanted my TeleRead site to promote his own technology, and he hated talk from Jon Noring and me of an industry standard. Our OpenReader initiative led the main e-book industry trade group to get serious about consumer-level standards--endlessly enraging the Bird. Wacky emails like his most recent one are his revenge. If you love eBabel, all those clashing e-book formats, the Bird's your guy. Proprietary DRM still mucks up e-books in various formats, including ePub from large publishers--"protection" sucks. But at least with ePub we're part of the way there. Bowerbird's "observer" friend has probably sold thousands of dollars of books in the very format that was to fade away. Gasp, PG offers ePub among other formats, and Apple has turned thousands of Gutenberg classics into ePub books for the iPad. Don't you love the Bowerbird crowd's powers of prophesy? OK, enough time spent on the Bird for the moment. He'll very possibly be amusing us on schedule in another six months or so. Cuckoo clock... Cuckoo Bird... Bowerbird... it all blurs together. David Rothman Founder and former editor-publisher of TeleRead =========== On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 5:18 PM, <Bowerbird(a)aol.com> wrote: > 4.5 years ago, i made a little bet with david rothman > -- who i pleasantly refer to as "the idiot", inspired by a > label given by another observer on the e-book scene -- > about my 5-year perspective on e-book hardware... > > you can find the original thread here: > > > http://www.teleread.com/2005/11/29/you-can-buy-the-mit-100-laptop-for-200/ > > as usual, for him, the idiot was blathering on about > how there'd be $50 e-book hardware "real soon now", > a line he'd been huckstering for years prior to that... > > i always reminded him that an e-book reader-machine > would have to have a chip and a screen, and that meant > that it would essentially be a computer, and that those > were the most expensive parts of any computer, so that > it was totally unrealistic to expect that kind of pricing... > > i said: > > and if there’s a $50 computer — i mean a real computer – > > available on _any_ thanksgiving in the next 5 years, i will > > _buy_it_ for you. because the cost of _lunch_ will hit $50 > > before there is a $50 computer. and i can buy you lunch… > > 4.5 years later, there's still no $50 computer on the market. > so it looks like the idiot's crystal ball was severely cracked... > > but walmart _will_ be selling the iphone (a real computer) > for just 99 bucks. so my crystal ball? pretty darn accurate. > > -bowerbird > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > >

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Re: spill baby spill
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Jun '10

01 Jun '10

i delayed this reminder post from last friday, as i didn't want to spoil your memorial day... thus i sincerely hope none of that oil polluting the gulf of mexico spilled on the meat you had grilling on your weekend outdoor barbeque... -bowerbird

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tofu turkey and cracked crystal balls
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Jun '10

01 Jun '10

4.5 years ago, i made a little bet with david rothman -- who i pleasantly refer to as "the idiot", inspired by a label given by another observer on the e-book scene -- about my 5-year perspective on e-book hardware... you can find the original thread here: > http://www.teleread.com/2005/11/29/you-can-buy-the-mit-100-laptop-for-200/ as usual, for him, the idiot was blathering on about how there'd be $50 e-book hardware "real soon now", a line he'd been huckstering for years prior to that... i always reminded him that an e-book reader-machine would have to have a chip and a screen, and that meant that it would essentially be a computer, and that those were the most expensive parts of any computer, so that it was totally unrealistic to expect that kind of pricing... i said: > and if there’s a $50 computer — i mean a real computer – > available on _any_ thanksgiving in the next 5 years, i will > _buy_it_ for you. because the cost of _lunch_ will hit $50 > before there is a $50 computer. and i can buy you lunch… 4.5 years later, there's still no $50 computer on the market. so it looks like the idiot's crystal ball was severely cracked... but walmart _will_ be selling the iphone (a real computer) for just 99 bucks. so my crystal ball? pretty darn accurate. -bowerbird

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the problem with the e-books from the internet archive -- 18 of 32
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 May '10

28 May '10

for 32 days, i am showing samples of the problems with the text in e-books from the internet archive... *** today's example is from "the turn of the screw". here's the scan for page 123: > http://www.archive.org/stream/twomagicsturnofs00jameuoft#page/123 here's the o.c.r. for the whole book: > http://ia331312.us.archive.org/0/items/twomagicsturnofs00jameuoft/twomagics… and here's the o.c.r. for page 123: > > THE TURN OF THE SCREW 123 > > He turned it over. " Very likely. But what > things ? " > > " The things you've never told me. To make up > his mind what to do with you. He can't send you > back " > > " Oh, I don't want to go back ! " he broke in. " I > want a new field." > > He said it with admirable serenity, with positive > unimpeachable gaiety ; and doubtless it was that very > note that most evoked for me the poignancy, the > unnatural childish tragedy, of his probable reappear > ance at the end of three months with all this bravado > and still more dishonour. It overwhelmed me now > I that I should never be able to bear that, and it made > i me let myself go. I threw myself upon him and in the > I tenderness of my pity I embraced him. " Dear little > Miles, dear little Miles 1 " > > My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, > simply taking it with indulgent goodhumour. " Well, > old lady ? " > > " Is there nothing nothing at all that you want to > tell me ? " > > He turned off a little, facing round toward the wall > and holding up his hand to look at as one had seen > sick children look. " I've told you I told you this > morning." > > Oh, I was sorry for him ! " That you just want me > not to worry you ? " > > He looked round at me now, as if in recognition of > my understanding him; then ever so gently, "To let > me alone," he replied. > > There was even a singular little dignity in it, some- spacey quotes, spacey question-marks, spacey exclamation-points, an exclamation-point misrecognized as "1", missing em-dashes and a missing end-of-line hyphen, are all errors occurring on this page. in addition, and more subtle, there are some extra characters at the left-hand margin in the middle of the fourth paragraph. i looked at other scan-sets of this book too, and found that many had been marked by patrons, introducing yet another ironic fact -- the more popular a book is, the more times it has been checked out, and the greater the likelihood that a patron has made marks in it... -bowerbird

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the problem with the e-books from the internet archive -- 17 of 32
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 May '10

28 May '10

for 32 days, i am showing samples of the problems with the text in e-books from the internet archive... *** today's example is again from our friend from baltimore, edgar allen poe, this time volume 10 of his collected works. here's the scan for page 43: > http://www.archive.org/stream/worksofedgaralle10poee#page/43 here's the o.c.r. for the whole book: > http://ia341315.us.archive.org/0/items/worksofedgaralle10poee/worksofedgara… and here's the o.c.r. for page 43: > > THE RATIONALE OP VERSE 43 > > add anything about their equality, we are merely > floundering in the idea of an identical equation, > where, x being equal to x, nothing is shown to be > equal to zero. In a word, we can form no con- > ception of a pyrrhic as of an independent foot. > It is a mere chimera bred in the mad fancy ot a > > ^^F^m what I have said about the equalisation > of the several feet of a line, it must not be de- > duced that any necessity for equality in time ex- > ists between the rhythm of several lines. ^ A > poem, or even a stanza, may begin with lam- > busses, in the first line, and proceed with ana > psests in the second, or even with the less accor- > dant dactyls, as in the opening of quite a pretty > specimen of verse by Miss Mary A. S. Aldrichj > > The wa ] ter H 1 ly sleeps \ in pride 1^^^ > Down in the depths of the [ azure | lake. | > > Here azure is a spondee, equivalent to a dactyU > > lake a caesura. ^i, ‚ ¨¢ ‚ ¨¢+;‚ ¨~i > > I shall now best proceed m quotmg the mitiaJ > lines of Byron's "Bride of Abydos:" > > Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle > > Are emblems of deeds that are done i^/.^^J^. fi;‚ ¢¬Æ~ > > Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle > Now meltmto softness, now madden to crime? > > TCnnw ve the land of the cedar and vine. > > Where'the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shi^. > > And the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume. > > Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul ia their bloom? > > Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit > > And the voice of the nightingale never ig mute‚ ¨ > > > Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, > > And all save the spirit of man is divine . ‚ ¨¢ well, here's another crooked page... i wonder how it gets _anything_ right, since every line is equally crooked, right? -bowerbird

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the problem with the e-books from the internet archive -- 16 of 32
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 May '10

28 May '10

for 32 days, i am showing samples of the problems with the text in e-books from the internet archive... *** oops! i'm sorry, i was very busy yesterday, so i forgot this! today's example is again from our friend from baltimore, edgar allen poe, this time volume 3 of his collected works. here's the scan for page 118: > http://www.archive.org/stream/worksofedgaralle03poee#page/118 here's the o.c.r. for the whole book: > http://ia341337.us.archive.org/2/items/worksofedgaralle03poee/worksofedgara… and here's the o.c.r. for page 118: > > 118 WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE > > a meckamcal ingenuity so much, superior to our > own. One finds it difficult, too, to conceive the > vast masses which these people handle so easily, > to be as light as our own reason tell us thej^ > actually are. > > Api'il 8th. â€” Eureka! Pundit is in his glory. > A balloon from Kanadaw spoke us to-day and > threw on board several late papers ; they contain > some exceedingly curious information relative > to Kanawdian or rather Amriccan antiquities. > You know, I presume, that laborers have for > some months been employed in preparing the > ground for a new fountain at Paradise, the Em- > peror's principal pleasure garden. Paradise, it > appears, has been, literally speaking, an island > time out of mind â€” that is to say, its northern > boundary was always (as far back as any record > extends) a rivulet, or rather a very narrow arm > of the sea. This arm was gradually widened > until it attained its present breadth â€” a mile. > The whole length of the island is nine miles; > the breadth varies materially. The entire area > (so Pundit says) was, about eight hundred years > ago, densely packed with houses, some of them > twenty stories high: land (for some most unac- > countable reason) being considered as especially > precious just in this vicinity. The disastrous > earthquake, howev' r, of the year 2050, so totally > uprooted and overwhelmed the town (for it was > almost too large to be called a village) that the > most indefatigable of our antiquarians have > never yet been able to obtain from the site any > sufficient data (in the shape of coins, medals or this appears to the human eye to be a very clean page, but we have errors where there was a mild imperfection on the page, including "mechanical" and "they" at the top, "april" in the next paragraph, and "however" further down. (the "kanawdian" and "amriccan" spellings were intentional.) and the o.c.r. was set to ignore the italics, so they're missing. so even with a clean page, we can get some o.c.r. errors, enough that -- when hundreds cumulate over a book -- it can take roughly one hour per book to fix all of them. -bowerbird

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the problem with the e-books from the internet archive -- 16 of 32
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 May '10

28 May '10

for 32 days, i am showing samples of the problems with the text in e-books from the internet archive... *** oops! i'm sorry, i was very busy yesterday, so i forgot this! today's example is again from our friend from baltimore, edgar allen poe, this time volume 3 of his collected works. here's the scan for page 118: > http://www.archive.org/stream/worksofedgaralle03poee#page/118 here's the o.c.r. for the whole book: > http://ia341337.us.archive.org/2/items/worksofedgaralle03poee/worksofedgara… and here's the o.c.r. for page 118: > > 118 WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE > > a meckamcal ingenuity so much, superior to our > own. One finds it difficult, too, to conceive the > vast masses which these people handle so easily, > to be as light as our own reason tell us thej^ > actually are. > > Api'il 8th. â€” Eureka! Pundit is in his glory. > A balloon from Kanadaw spoke us to-day and > threw on board several late papers ; they contain > some exceedingly curious information relative > to Kanawdian or rather Amriccan antiquities. > You know, I presume, that laborers have for > some months been employed in preparing the > ground for a new fountain at Paradise, the Em- > peror's principal pleasure garden. Paradise, it > appears, has been, literally speaking, an island > time out of mind â€” that is to say, its northern > boundary was always (as far back as any record > extends) a rivulet, or rather a very narrow arm > of the sea. This arm was gradually widened > until it attained its present breadth â€” a mile. > The whole length of the island is nine miles; > the breadth varies materially. The entire area > (so Pundit says) was, about eight hundred years > ago, densely packed with houses, some of them > twenty stories high: land (for some most unac- > countable reason) being considered as especially > precious just in this vicinity. The disastrous > earthquake, howev' r, of the year 2050, so totally > uprooted and overwhelmed the town (for it was > almost too large to be called a village) that the > most indefatigable of our antiquarians have > never yet been able to obtain from the site any > sufficient data (in the shape of coins, medals or this appears to the human eye to be a very clean page, but we have errors where there was a mild imperfection on the page, including "mechanical" and "they" at the top, "april" in the next paragraph, and "however" further down. (the "kanawdian" and "amriccan" spellings were intentional.) and the o.c.r. was set to ignore the italics, so they're missing. so even with a clean page, we can get some o.c.r. errors, enough that -- when hundreds cumulate over a book -- it can take roughly one hour per book to fix all of them. -bowerbird

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gotta love amazon's pluck
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 May '10

27 May '10

gotta love amazon's pluck... are they sitting back and feeling sorry for themselves, facing challenges from the ipad and the agency model? not one bit! no sir, they're doubling down. that cute kindle commercial -- once a rarity on t.v. -- has now become a staple, playing all hours of the day. it's as if amazon considers that the debut of the ipad _justifies_ and _bolsters_ their belief in their machine. and the agency model? well, gee, it's fairly easy to see how amazon can live with a 30% markup on big-5 books, seeing how they used to use many of 'em as loss-leaders. when the product that you used to _literally_ pay people to purchase is suddenly dumping money in your pocket, you have funds to buy more things like t.v. commercials... so i love all of that. but this last thing is most excellent. even though the big-5 publishers have upped the cost of the e-books they sell through amazon, amazon has been concentrating on giving its customers an attractive option. specifically, they have been concentrating on loading the store with e-books that are priced in the $5-$9.98 range. > http://kindlehomepage.blogspot.com/2010/05/power-of-catalog-kindle-undercut… they're spitting in the face of the publishers who want to elevate the price of e-books, by making 'em work harder and harder against competitors that offer a lower price... as a direct consequence of severely curtailed demand at the higher prices, combined with renewed competition at these lower pricepoints, the big-5 publishers are learning they have to lower their prices back to the dreaded $9.99. except instead of getting the kindle subsidy that they used to get when they were receiving $12.50 (50% of a $25 list), those publishers are now getting $7 (70% of the $9.99 sale). just as most of us observers predicted back when it occurred, the agency model has backfired -- very badly -- on the big-5. they thought steve jobs was their savior, when really, he was pulling a fast one on them (albeit doing it for their own good, since these corporate fat-cats are delusional about pricing)... you just watch -- at the end of their one-year "trial period", the big-5 will find a way to quietly shelve the agency model and return to their former way of doing business. but alas, nothing they do can save them now. their goose is cooked... kudos to amazon! -bowerbird

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the problem with the e-books from the internet archive -- 15 of 32
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 25 May '10

25 May '10

for 32 days, i am showing samples of the problems with the text in e-books from the internet archive... *** today's example is again from our friend from baltimore, edgar allen poe, this time volume 4 of his collected works. here's the scan for page 22: > http://www.archive.org/stream/worksofedgaralle04poee#page/22 here's the o.c.r. for the whole book: > http://ia341320.us.archive.org/2/items/worksofedgaralle04poee/worksofedgara… and here's the o.c.r. for page 22: > > 22 WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE > > ''IJcnri Duval, a neighbor, and by trade a > silvej -imith, deposes that he was one of the > party v\ iio first entered the house. Corroborates > the testimony of Muset in general. As soon as > they forced an entrance, they re-closed the door, > to keep out the crowd, which collected very fast, > notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. The > shrill voice, this witness thinks, was that of an > Italian. Was certain it was not French. > Could not be sure that it was a man's voice. It > might have been a woman's. Was not ac- > quainted with the Italian language. Could not > distinguish the words, but was convinced by the > intonation that the speaker was an Italian. > Knew Madame L. and her daugh4;er. Had con- > versed with both frequently. Was sure that the > shrill voice was not that of either of the > deceased. f > > " Odenheimer, restaurateur. â€” This wit- > ness volunteered his testimony. Not speaking > French, was examined through an interpreter. > Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the > house at the time of the shrieks. They lasted > for several minutes â€” probably ten. They were > long and loud â€” very awful and distressing. > Was one of those who entered the building. > Corroborated the previous evidence in every re- > spect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice > was that of a man â€” of a Frenchman. Could > not distinguish the words uttered. They were > loud and quick â€” unequalâ€” spoken apparently in > fear as well as in anger. The voice was harsh > â€” not so much shrill as harsh. Could not call it errors in the upper-left corner, including "henri" and "silversmith" and "who". with "daughter" further down, a stray "f", and some missing em-dashes too. plus the missing italics, of course, at the start of each paragraph. this is pretty representative of many pages, in that it is _very_ good in the sense that it's almost all correct, but the half-dozen problems which do manifest will still take a bit of time to fix, and that accumulates over a full book. -bowerbird

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Re: the problem with the e-books from the internetarchive -- 11 of 32
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 25 May '10

25 May '10

badger said: > It's not the lens, it is inside Abbyy. i'm pretty sure dkretz was pulling our legs when he made his reference to "the lens"... ;+) > The difference depends on whether FR rotates > the image by 2 degrees before the recognition starts. excellent detective work, badger. thanks for that. and, oh my word, who would have ever thought that archive.org would instruct finereader _not_ to rotate a page which is crooked... what an asinine decision... in my original suggested workflow for these projects, i recommended that they do an initial shot of the page, and then analyze the results and rotate the _camera_ ever-slightly as required to get a perfectly straight scan. once again, the ludicrous irony of having a high-res scan that is marred in some way -- e.g., by being crooked -- asserts itself... what a bunch of idiots we have in charge. anyway, thanks again badger... -bowerbird

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