- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

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

09 Sep '09

read the reviews for the iphone e-book viewer-app called "eucalyptus". you will see that it gets credit for making p.g. e-texts look beautiful... eucalyptus uses the plain-text format; it elicits beauty from that format. greg notes that david widger and al haines are "updating" older e-texts with .html equivalents. do you know how they are accomplishing that? they run a program that converts the plain-text format to an .html file. to put it in other words, the .html file is elicited from the plain-text file. i guess david and al want to "get the credit" for creating the .html files, which is fine. but if they really wanted to increase overall productivity, they'd turn the conversion routine loose, so any end-user could run it, without having to wait for david or al to get around to the file they want. moreover, with more people using the routine, chances are that it would be improved via open-source coding contributions, which would be cool. but remember, it's the plain-text file that puts all of this action in play... *** greg said: > Nobody has argued that text is the master format, or should be. that's bull-shit, pure and simple. i have argued -- at length, with good arguments, ones that nobody has been able to counter -- that the plain-text format is the master. the same conversion processes that enable eucalyptus to elicit beauty from the plain-text file and which enable whitewashers to elicit .html can be used to create any type of file-format we might want to elicit, from the kindle to .epub to .pdf to .rtf to .lit to the-next-big-thing... now, that's not to say that the current form of the plain-text files is good enough to do the job, because it's not. but that's simply because the "powers that be" haven't accepted the modifications i've suggested. but that's their stupidity, it's not an inherent weakness in the format... in summary... if you're not smart enough to see that i have won this particular debate, step right up into the circle and i will be happy to knock you out, again. -bowerbird

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

09 Sep '09

david said: > And thanks to Apple, another compelling reason don't care to get into the ring itself, do you david? so you point to a shiny distraction off to the side! we're talking about the plain-text format, and how it is the most useful format for eliciting beauty (and more)... we're talking about how so many people -- like you -- argued with me over a period of several years about this very point, and how i have emerged victorious... that's what we're talking about... -bowerbird p.s. and, since you mentioned it, the brouhaha with apple gave _tons_ of additional exposure to eucalyptus, so -- in the end -- it gave the program a tremendous lift. i'm gonna do everything i can to make sure that my apps are held up by apple the same way, to get public sympathy.

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What is the intended use of TXT format-- why line breaks?
by Greg M. Johnson 09 Sep '09

09 Sep '09

Hi. I have looked at PG's books in both HTML and TXT formats, on several different devices, from large-screen laptops to netbooks to an Ipod Touch. In just about every possible scenario, I had the line breaks creating an irregular right margin down the screen that made for unpleasant reading. I also tried taking one of the raw TXT files to make "my own" HTML file, and was tripped up by the line breaks. In order to prevent me from making the suggestion of changing the whole collection, can someone tell me why that number of characters on the screen was chosen? -- Greg M. Johnson http://pterandon.blogspot.com

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Re: labor day -- working for peace
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 Sep '09

08 Sep '09

bastien said: > Using uppercase letters in not completely useless... what is wrong with us americans? and what is wrong with our justice system? -bowerbird

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labor day -- working for peace
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 Sep '09

08 Sep '09

the rev. carl kabat has spent over 10 years in jail as "punishment" for his _symbolic_ protests against nuclear weapons. > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/07activist.html what is wrong with our justice system? what is wrong with us? -bowerbird

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!@! An urgent appeal to all Canadian supporters of Project Gutenberg
by Michael S. Hart 07 Sep '09

07 Sep '09

Please forward as you feel appropriate. Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 01:03:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Akrigg <contact.gutenberg(a)yahoo.ca> To: Michael Hart <hart(a)pobox.com> Cc: hart(a)pglaf.org Subject: An urgent appeal to all Canadian supporters of Project Gutenberg Dear friends: I am the founder of Project Gutenberg Canada, and would like to make a special appeal to Canadian supporters of Project Gutenberg. Our government is sponsoring a Copyright Consultation on future changes to the Copyright Act. This is an unprecedented request from the government for the people of Canada to express their views on copyright law. Please consider making your personal submission. In the submission which I made on behalf of Project Gutenberg Canada, I made the following five recommendations: 1. A "Safe Harbour" provision for works more than 75 years old where the life dates of the authors are not known 2. No extensions of copyright durations 3. Explicit assignment to the Public Domain of those photographs that were in the Public Domain in 1997 4. 75 year copyright for works with more than 15 authors 5. Enhanced protection of the Public Domain You can read the full PG Canada submission at http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/008.nsf/eng/01390.html Your own submission should be in your own words, and can be quite short. We don't want to bury the government in spam, and truly individual submissions will have the greatest effect. There is no need to precisely mirror the recommendations I made. You will find the main Copyright Consultations page here: http://copyright.econsultation.ca/ You will find information on how to email your submission here: http://copyright.econsultation.ca/topics-sujets/show-montrer/18 You might also wish to send a copy of your submission to your Member of Parliament: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalC… The main Copyright Consultation page has information on how you can participate in the forums being conducted by the government on copyright issues, which naturally cover many issues which do not affect PG Canada, but do affect your life in other respects. The main thing is to make your submission sooner rather than later: the Copyright Consultation ends on September 13th. It appears possible that there will be a federal election in Canada this fall. Don't forget to tell your candidates that they are answerable to you when it comes to copyright law, and that you expect any future government to protect and promote the Public Domain. Thank you in advance for your help. And don't forget to make your submission! Dr. Mark Akrigg Founder, Project Gutenberg Canada

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keeping up with cory
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 04 Sep '09

04 Sep '09

if you haven't kept up with cory lately, he does a nice little history review here: > http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2009/09/cory-doctorow-special-pleading… money quote: > I don't give away downloads because I'm just a swell guy -- > I do it because I'm a self-employed entrepreneur who > needs to make as much as he can to support his family. in other words, a free online copy doesn't _cost_ him money, it _makes_ him money. -bowerbird

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Re: Everyone Wants a Kindle–For $50
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Sep '09

03 Sep '09

it ends up that people would like for the kindle to cost $50. somebody should tell david rothman about this. > http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090903/study-everyone-wants-a-kindle-for-… kindle-shmindle. i want the apple itablet to cost $50... -bowerbird

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Grosly Broken browser or wiki
by Greg Weeks 01 Sep '09

01 Sep '09

Something is messed up. Can someone undo the last edit I just did for the Science fiction bookshelf wiki page. It wiped it clean. -- Greg Weeks http://durendal.org:8080/greg/

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Rosetta Stone as eBook
by Michael S. Hart 25 Aug '09

25 Aug '09

We are exploring doing something on the order of public domain translations of the various Ancient Greek, Coptic, Hieroglyphs et al from The Rosetta Stone. Please advise if you would be interested in helping. We put this in Preprints: http://preprints.readingroo.ms/rosetta/ Including a README.TXT Original source: http://books.google.com/books?id=Q5Ow9Ub_BIgC&oe=UTF-8 it's also at archive.org, with raw OCR Many thanks!!! -- Greg and Michael

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