- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

etext 1842 Michael Sstrogoff
by N Wolcott 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

The catalogue currently indicates an 1842 -10 html and 1842-11 txt. Previously I had a 1842-10 txt which no longet appears. These appear to be all the same text, although 1842-10.txt and t842-11.txt differ in length by 2K bytes (change in header?). The source for all was apparently Judy Boss, and as there will be no errors in her text, unless she herself submitted it twice, all the texts should be identical. Since the html was converted from Boss's text there is the possibility of an error in the conversion. The html capitalizes the 1st letter of each chapter, not in the original etext. Otherwise a robot conversion. Too bad all the versions do not appear on the catalogue list. N Wolcott nwolcott2(a)post.harvard.edu

2 1

Magic books?
by Juhana Sadeharju 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Hello. A few years ago I purchased old magic books (in public domain) from a web company. I could not find the company anymore. At the time I had money to purchase only about 10 books and wanted to purchase more later. Where I could find magic books either as commercial digitized image files or as free image files or OCR'ed text. That is, if I need to purchase, I want the original look&feel to the books (like I do have now in those 10 books). Otherwise anything goes. The books are about the real magic, performed by Houdini, James Randi, David Copperfield, Pen&Teller, Masked Magician, and many more. I have no idea where I could find original magic books so that I could digitize them myself. (Previously I have scanned a few math books.) Regards, Juhana

2 1

Addition to PG History PT1
by Michael Hart 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Well, it would appear those in question did not read the message above, at least they did not reply to any of the points made, so I am duty bound to explain in a bit more detail, as to how there are no other choices other than Project Gutenberg's first effort at a regular production schedule in 1991 as a starting point. Here are various starting years and results for Moore's Law used to project the growth of Project Gutenberg. START TOTAL START TOTAL START TOTAL START TOTAL YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER ACTUAL 1971 BASE 1971 1979 BASE 1979 1990 BASE 1990 1993 BASE 1993 NUMBER/YR 1971 1 1 1971 1974 4 4 1974 1977 16 7 1977 1980 64 1979 9 9 1980 1983 256 1982 36 9 1983 1986 1024 1985 144 10 1986 1989 4096 1988 576 1990 10 10 1989 1992 16384 1991 2304 1993 40 1993 100 42 1992 1995 65536 1994 9216 1996 160 1996 400 365 1995 1998 262144 1997 36864 1999 640 1999 1600 1550 1998 2001 1480576 2000 147456 2002 2560 2002 25600 4260 2001 2004 4194304 2003 589824 2005 10240 2005 102400 14944 2004 2007 16777216 2006 2359296 2008 40960 2008 409600 ????? 2007 As you can plainly see, starting Moore's Law at any other date than ~1991 is inappropriate not only because the numbers make it obvious, but also because 1991 was the first year of regular production growth for Project Gutenberg.

1 0

Re: [gutvol-d] PT1 History of PG
by Joshua Hutchinson 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

Believe what? That Moore's Law was never meant to be applied to PG? Yes, I believe that. That Moore's Law is being applied arbitrarily to PG production? Yes, I believe that. That Moore's Law is not being adhered to by our production EXCEPT for the very specific and arbitrary start date chosen by you? Yes, I believe that. Do I believe it is a big deal? No. It is obviously a marketing gimmick with no real value. MOST marketing gimmicks "cook the numbers" in some way, so this just adheres to the grand traditions of marketing/public relations. Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Hart" <hart(a)pglaf.org> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] PT1 History of PG Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:39:15 -0800 (PST) > > > Just a simple question. . .how many people believe any of this? > > Should I really go through the motions of refuting it again, > and again, and again? > > As I said privately, offline, I don't think even the speaker > believes what he is saying. . . . > > Michael > > > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > > > Michael Hart wrote: > > > >> Obviously no one ever seriously considered that Project Gutenberg > >> might actually release a million eBooks in 2001, but there were a > >> few examples recently of suggestions that we should have used the > >> 1971 date, and thus the resultant figures listed above when doing > >> our Moore's Law predictions. > > > > [epighraph] > > > > "Contrary to popular claims, it appears that the common versions of > > Moore's Law have not been valid during the last decades. As > > semiconductors are becoming important in economy and society, Moore's > > Law is now becoming an increasingly misleading predictor of future > > developments." > > > > ... > > > > "Indeed, sociologically Moore's Law is a fascinating case of how myths are > > manufactured in the modern society and how such myths rapidly propagate into > > scientific articles, speeches of leading industrialists, and government > > policy reports around the world." > > > > http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/tuomi/index.html > > > > [/epigraph] > > > > Read that page for the sad truth about Moore's "Law". > > > > > > My suggestion was to stop using arbitrary data to keep up the illusion > > of Moore's Law (which, if you had read that page, would have known never > > worked even for computers) but to use real data to show that Moore's > > "Law" does not fit to PG production. > > > > The suggestion was to use the real date the project started (1971) > > instead of your fictitious and arbitrary one (1990). > > > > Of course, using real dates, the idea that PG production followed > > Moore's Law dies a horrible death. > > > > > > Even looking at the relatively short period of Nov 2003 to Nov 2004 we > > can prove in a very simple manner that Moore's Law doesn't hold. > > > > 1. In Nov 2003 we had 10000 books. > > > > 2. Applying Moore's Law, in Nov 2004 we should have had > > 10000 * 2 ^ (12/18) = 15874 books. > > > > 3. Moore's Law does not hold for PG archive size. > > > > QED > > > > > > The sad fact is: some people with a marketing person's mind prefer to > > stick to a phony and proven wrong "Law" because it is such a slick > > formulation. > > > > Why do we need flashy formulas at all? If we say: "we got 15000 books > > today" isn't that enough? Don't you have faith in the facts? > > > > > > -- Marcello Perathoner > > webmaster(a)gutenberg.org > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > gutvol-d mailing list > > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d > > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

2 1

Re: !@! Re: [gutvol-d] Moving and Removing eBooks
by D. Starner 23 Jan '05

23 Jan '05

Michael Hart writes: > This is why we do not "Move or Remove" eBooks from > the more visble locations to the less visible. We do everytime we make a new edition of a book; we move the old edition from the default link to something you'd have to dig around in the directory tree does. Darn good thing, too. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

4 3

Re: [gutvol-d] Moving and Removing eBooks
by Jim Tinsley 22 Jan '05

22 Jan '05

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 11:34:58 -0700, Jon Noring <jon(a)noring.name> wrote: >[Note: many of the pre-DP texts need to be redone from scratch for >various reasons. For another project, I'm now working on My �ntonia by >Willa Cather, one of the early PG releases (#242), and the latest PG >edition of it, #11!, is horribly mangled from various edits, without >recourse to the original, during its lifetime. I interpreted this as an errata report, and checked it out. There have been no edits to this book during its lifetime, horrible mangles or otherwise. Edition 11 is just a re-wrapping of edition 10, with the words "THE END" removed from the end of the text. I have no idea why someone felt it desirable to rewrap the original text, since the original looks perfectly good to me; however, it was done. The date on edition 10 is Feb 16 1995, which is consistent with its original posting, so if myant10 was ever changed at all, it was within weeks of first posting, and not since -- not a shock; Judy always did good work! Apart from spaces, blank lines, and indents consequent to the re-wrapping, the two texts are identical, as anyone who checks can easily verify. jim

1 0

Marking Bold in text files
by Al Haines (shaw) 22 Jan '05

22 Jan '05

In November 2004 there were several threads dealing with marking bold text in text files ("Marking bold & italic in .txt"). One of those messages, dated Nov 12, 2004, indicated that the PG FAQ's would be updated to indicate the use of asterisks (*) to mark bold text, similar to PG's FAQ V.94's standard of using underscores to indicate italicized text. Was this update ever done? FYI - I checked the Distributed Proofing site's FAQ's, but the only reference I can find of bold text says to use the HTML and tags. In the absence of a PG standard, is it OK for me to use asterisks to indicate bold text within a document? (Note that I'd only be doing this for bold text inside paragraphs, not for things like headings that might be bolded as part of some automatic formatting process.) Al

4 3

Re: [gutvol-d] Marking Bold in text files
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Jan '05

21 Jan '05

Well, this is how I would handle it... :) [Footnote 1: *poem fragment* The footnote text itself.] The footnote number would be the poem line number it refers to. JHutch ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Haines (shaw)" <ajhaines(a)shaw.ca> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Marking Bold in text files Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:39:20 -0800 > > Hmm... Hopefully I haven't opened *too* big a can of worms here <G>, so I'll > re-cast my question in terms of the specific book I'm working on. > > It's a textbook on selected poems of Tennyson and Wordsworth. The poems have > line reference numbers every 10 lines, and those and interim line numbers are > used to refer to footnotes. > > Each footnote consists of the line number (not bolded), then a fragment of > that line of the poem (bolded), then the footnote body (not bolded) discussing > the fragment. > > It's the use of asterisks around the fragment portion of the footnote that my > question was directed to. > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joshua Hutchinson" <joshua(a)hutchinson.net> > To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> > Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 12:34 PM > Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Marking Bold in text files > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jonathan Walther" <krooger(a)debian.org> > > > > On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 02:51:40PM -0500, Joshua Hutchinson wrote: > > > Well, technically, we were here first... They reinvented OUR wheel! ;) > > > > > > PG has been using _ to indicate italics for as long as I can remember. > > > > Is each word individually italicized? It would look messy, but be > > robust. > > > > No, each section of italicized words is marked. > > EXAMPLE: > > This is a sentence with _an italicized phrase_. > > This is a sentence with *a bolded phrase*. > > **** > > The obvious problem with this encoding is that it can be very difficult to > determine that every opening _ is closed by the appropriate _. That is one of > the reasons DP uses and in the proofing interface instead. > > Josh > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d > > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

1 0

Re: [gutvol-d] Marking Bold in text files
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Jan '05

21 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathan Walther" <krooger(a)debian.org> > > On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 02:51:40PM -0500, Joshua Hutchinson wrote: > > Well, technically, we were here first... They reinvented OUR wheel! ;) > > > > PG has been using _ to indicate italics for as long as I can remember. > > Is each word individually italicized? It would look messy, but be > robust. > No, each section of italicized words is marked. EXAMPLE: This is a sentence with _an italicized phrase_. This is a sentence with *a bolded phrase*. **** The obvious problem with this encoding is that it can be very difficult to determine that every opening _ is closed by the appropriate _. That is one of the reasons DP uses and in the proofing interface instead. Josh

2 1

Re: [gutvol-d] Marking Bold in text files
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Jan '05

21 Jan '05

Well, technically, we were here first... They reinvented OUR wheel! ;) PG has been using _ to indicate italics for as long as I can remember. Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "David A. Desrosiers" <hacker(a)gnu-designs.com> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Marking Bold in text files Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:46:56 -0500 (EST) > > > > One of those messages, dated Nov 12, 2004, indicated that the PG FAQ's would > > be updated to indicate the use of asterisks (*) to mark bold text, similar > > to PG's FAQ V.94's standard of using underscores to indicate italicized > > text. Was this update ever done? > > I can't help but notice that this is the exact opposite of the > Markdown syntax and format used by many "wiki" forums and online web > applications. Any particular reason for reinventing this wheel again? > Why not reuse one of the existing systems for plain-text markup, that > is ultimately easier to parse out for further conversion back to any > other format (bbcode, Markdown, wikitext). > > Just my 0.02 Euros. > > David A. Desrosiers > desrod(a)gnu-designs.com > http://gnu-designs.com > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

2 1