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Re: Psychology of interacting with (Google's) ebooks.
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 06 Feb '10

06 Feb '10

greg said: > So what on earth are these big-pipe servers doing? collecting information, so as to assemble it, and reassemble it, thereby producing new information that might change the world. or make money. lots of money. lots and lots and lots of money... -bowerbird

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Re: psychology of interactimg with ebooks
by Greg M. Johnson 06 Feb '10

06 Feb '10

<<discussion of poetry auto-generated files messed up>> IMNSHO, another fruit of making the TXT-80 format the default standard. The programming will ne a headache if one can't just delete *all*the CR's.

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Re: psychology of interactimg with ebooks
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 06 Feb '10

06 Feb '10

greg said: > The programming will ne a headache > if one can't just delete *all*the CR's. nah. programming an unwrap routine is quite easy... > http://z-m-l.com/go/unwrap.pl -bowerbird

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Re: autogenerated HTML
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 05 Feb '10

05 Feb '10

i said: > without even looking at those files, i can guess what's wrong... > > many of the books that are exclusively poetry are set flush to > the left margin, lacking any of the leading spaces that serve > as a signal to the conversion program not to wrap the lines... > > so of course the converter is gonna wrap the lines. > > this is an error, a major error, in the processing of these books. > > (and it's so easy to change every linebreak to a linebreak+space.) well, gee, i should have looked at those files earlier, because when i did get around to looking at them, i got a good laugh. see, the lines _were_ indented, so shouldn't have been wrapped. and wouldn't have been wrapped if most of the converters around would've been used. but i have since learned that there is an "experimental" converter, programmed by marcello, and that's what was used for this book. the irony of this gave me a big hearty laugh. you see, when i laid out the philosophy of z.m.l. here on this list, some of you will remember how much crap marcello threw at me. the guy was relentless. even though he almost never made _any_ posts to the list otherwise, he would respond negatively to anything i said. but never constructively. he'd just throw out pure bullcrap... for a long time i responded, just to clearly specify that it was crap; but after a while i decided to let his crap speak for its crappy self, and i stopped responding. after that, he stopped responding to me. (i guess that thing they say about not feeding the trolls is right on.) but if you wanna see what an ass he was, you can check the archives. you can also go look at a website he set up with a lot of quotes from messages i sent here. most of them are taken out of context, sure, but even then i stand behind them. you'll see that they were correct. (that's right, he set up a _fan_ page, on his web-site, to ridicule me; i don't know where the guy is coming from, but i think he should get a life.) anyway, marcello insisted that my approach was bunk, and that one could not successfully generate a full-on .html file from a .txt version. yet now he is writing code to do just that. (he's not doing it _successfully_ yet, so in regard to _himself_ alone, i guess he was right. but i have been successful for a long time now.) what's especially ironic -- and funny to me -- is that marcello is now suffering through the same complications that i experienced, namely maddeningly inconsistent .txt files, which he must program around, just like i did. further, this will lead him to the same conclusion that i came to, which is that this would be _much_ simpler if only the rules that p.g. has already established for .txt files were simply _followed_... even more irony, and thus even more humor? marcello is programming in _python_, a language where indentation is _meaningful_. this is ironic, and funny, because one of the things about z.m.l. which marcello once tried to lambaste is that whitespace is meaningful. every time he does an indent, i hope he chokes on it. meanwhile, i just have one thing to say to all you z.m.l. naysayers: i told you so. you were wrong. i was right. i hope you choke on it. (wait, is that one thing, or 4 things? oh well, guess it doesn't matter.) -bowerbird

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autogenerated HTML
by traverso＠posso.dm.unipi.it 04 Feb '10

04 Feb '10

I have just become aware that PG now autogenerates HTML for texts that don't have it. Unfortunately however sometimes the autogenerated file is garbage (e.g. poetry rewrapped, see 31079). Would it be possible to have the autogeneration program to find what is the problem, or at least to preview the autogenerated file and possibly fix either the program or the files? Carlo

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Re: autogenerated HTML
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 04 Feb '10

04 Feb '10

carlo said: > I have just become aware that PG now > autogenerates HTML for texts that don't have it. since a number of people are fond of rewriting history here, let's note for the record that i suggested this some time ago. indeed, my recommendation was that the .txt version should be used to autogenerate the .html version for _all_ the books, that hand-crafted .html be abandoned because it is too hard to maintain and to upgrade. i also suggested that conformance to this strategy would enable p.g. to improve the .txt versions... and i predicted that sooner or later, you'd all come around to this workflow. and how you have. so i will say "i told you so." > Unfortunately however sometimes the autogenerated file > is garbage (e.g. poetry rewrapped, see 31079). without even looking at those files, i can guess what's wrong... many of the books that are exclusively poetry are set flush to the left margin, lacking any of the leading spaces that serve as a signal to the conversion program not to wrap the lines... so of course the converter is gonna wrap the lines. this is an error, a major error, in the processing of these books. (and it's so easy to change every linebreak to a linebreak+space.) > Would it be possible to have the autogeneration program to find > what is the problem, or at least to preview the autogenerated file > and possibly fix either the program or the files? i've never tried to verify it with a closer analysis, but my impression is that some of the whitewashers use a slightly different converter... and then of course there are a number of different ones over at d.p., including the one in thundercat's app, and another by david garcia... without dedication to making the .txt program correct at the outset, however, it doesn't matter how good the converter might be... -bowerbird

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Psychology of interacting with (Google's) ebooks.
by Greg M. Johnson 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

I downloaded two epub's from Google Books and one or both of the book reading apps on my Android phone didn't even see one of them. I think that some of these collections are designed with the idea that the repository should be on the web, and you the reader should go search the web interface to find a book you want, then download that one book, have perfect confidence it's going to be cool to read and functioning properly, then maybe you'll go on to the next one a few days later. I don't think humans work that way. First of all web interfaces, especially on a phone, are inherently slow, and sometimes unavailable either due to wifi/ 3G coverage or due to embarassment about using "work bandwidth". The Google Books interface isn't *bad*, but it's still like being fed at a gourmet banquet with a baby spoon. The user may have one bad experience with a downloaded text, no matter how small, and they want to curate their own collection first, maybe hoard-up more books than they or their family could read in a lifetime, cull out the icky or malfunctioning texts, and then have say 20 on their reader and 2000 on a DVD in a safe in their basement. At least that's how I respond to having one or two minor problems. ;) I don't think that Google Books at least gets this. I spent so much time at Google Books, browsing in apparently spider-like fashion, that I got this warning: "We're sorry... ... but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now." I guess they're right. At any moment I was about to try to download a few hundred epub's. -- Greg M. Johnson http://pterandon.blogspot.com

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Re: Formats and gripes
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

dakretz said: > I had a car like this once. The turn signal > was on the right side of the steering column. > The headlight dimmer was on the left side. > The window winders worked backwards. > The inside door locks would lock when you pulled them up, > and unlock when you pushed them down. > An iconoclastic car' which was one reason I liked it. funny how much we are willing to deviate from "the standard" when we are making the decision to do so for our own reasons, and how unwilling we are to do so when someone else asks us... marcello would jump through all kinds of hoops to make his own preferred formats work, but he won't do jack shit for anyone else. if you're not gonna make a mobi version that runs on the kindle, there isn't much sense in making a mobi version at all, is there? but like all technocrats, marcello is great at displacing the blame: "if it doesn't work for you, it must be your fault. not my problem." and even if another "project gutenberg volunteer" were to _solve_ this particular problem, i doubt marcello would mount the solution. i don't know who gave him this power to decide what gets blessed and what doesn't, but i wish they would now take it away from him. -bowerbird

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Re: roundlessness -- 002
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

frank said: > Now-a-days it seems we're supposed to look at systems > as a whole, instead of doing hypothesis drivin experiments > (at least, granting agencies seem to think so). i believe that as this series continues, my point will become crystal-clear. in the absence of such clarity, or if you think your point continues to have some merit, frank, please do make it in a more specific manner later on... -bowerbird

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Re: roundlessness -- 002
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

get yer own thread! -bowerbird

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