- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: [gutvol-d] don suggests wordpress again
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Nov '11

12 Nov '11

don said: > Time for a refresher on WP, bird. oh, c'mon, don, you're never gonna get your $2 being obfuscatory and avoiding the real points... 1. wordpress content is stored in a mysql database. are you trying to make us believe that is not true? because if anyone doubts it, here is a u.r.l. for you: > http://codex.wordpress.org/Database_Description so on top of the obfuscation of the text by the .html, it's now buried inside of a mysql database, meaning that anyone who wants to understand the system well needs to acquire an additional hairy set of experience. 2. the mysql database used is not a simple one, either. i mean, seriously, people, take a look at that page, and ask yourself if you wanna have to deal with all that crap. and it ain't easy, either. read the cautions on this page: > http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/12/01/search-and-replace-in-wordpress-mys… those are the warnings for doing a search-and-replace! should we have to worry about anything so elementary? a wordpress database has about a dozen tables in it: > http://bloggersmarket.com/wordpress-mysql-database-tables/ ask yourself if you need that kind of hassle... seriously. what about doing mysql "queries"? know how to do them? > http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/01/30/13-useful-wordpress-sql-queries-you-… something as "simple" as doing a back-up gets complex. please don't let yourself fall for a slick interface, folks... because if you don't grok how to do the things yourself, you'll have to depend on someone else to do it "for you". this is simple text, folks. storable in simple text-files. unless you let other guys gunk up your systems instead. do _not_ let them seize that control over your workflow! 3. the .html and .css used by wordpress is convoluted. do you deny this, don? please tell us if you deny this... because if you do, i'll post some here, for "evaluation", and i'll invite you to explain it to the nice people here... i'm glad you're doing experimentation; that is valuable. but the mere idea of using wordpress is a non-starter... i like you, don. you're one of the good guys. seriously. the way you are treated over at d.p. is truly a disgrace... but you'll need to step up your game to snare your $2... ;+) -bowerbird

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double your money and quadruple your fun
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Nov '11

12 Nov '11

for everyone who makes a positive contribution to the listserve in the next year, i will send $2... _any_ positive contribution counts, _especially_ if it is not made in reaction to one of my posts. (i'll include a $.22 bonus if you clear that bar.) the first award goes to jim, for "color overlay"... -bowerbird

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don suggests wordpress again
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Nov '11

12 Nov '11

don said: > You could try what is arguably > the most widely used html editor/platform for non-techies > - the WordPress.blog engine. > Besides it's default mediocre sorta-wysiwyg UI, > you can get adapters to input markdown, RST, textile, etc. you've been experimenting with that for a while now, don. something tells me that if it really worked, you would have some things that you would be willing to show us by now... > Pure, unadulterated HTML. oh, it's .html, to be sure, but i wouldn't call it "unadulterated" in any way, and describing it with "pure" is simply laughable... evidently you haven't really looked at it, or its .css stylesheets. oh, and just for the record, wordpress doesn't actually _save_ content as .html files, but rather saves it in a mysql database. because saving content as .html files would be _very_messy_... *** but hey, let's say someone wants to give wordpress a whirl... i would suggest that that person check out pressbooks.com. i believe the site, which i have suggested before (but when do my first few suggestions ever get traction on this list?), is now out of beta... if not, it will be, soon, so check back... my guess is that you will find it unsatisfactory, but if not, please come back here and tell us. i like to be surprised. -bowerbird

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Anti-troll prize
by Sparr 12 Nov '11

12 Nov '11

If you've posted to this list within the last year, if you post to this list within the next year, and if you do not respond, directly or indirectly, by email, forum post, website updates, or otherwise, to any Bowerbird's[1] emails during the next year, One year from today I will send you a prize of one dollar, in any reasonable form and fashion of your choosing. [1] Bowerbird(a)aol.com or any easily recognized or identified sockpuppets

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back to my former, wiser, decision
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Nov '11

11 Nov '11

since lee passey is continuing to communicate in a dishonest way, i've made the decision to reinstate my refusal to engage him in debate. if you believe he "addressed" my points, or added much value to this conversation, i now choose to allow you to remain stupid. so, back to the kill-file, lee. buh-bye passey. -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] epubeditor.sourceforge.net
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Nov '11

11 Nov '11

the good alex said: > Here's something someone at the archive is working on > (after hours, since it's not an official project yet). > He'd love to hear your thoughts. > http://edwardbetts.com/correct i'm not sure of the exact point being made, but a line-by-line proofing interface like betts made is simple enough to create with the page-scans and a correctly-created o.c.r. output text-file... ya don't need to plow through ten tons of x.m.l. i even demonstrated it years ago here on this list, with an interface quite similar to the one shown (except without that too-funky font and spacing.) but i couldn't find the code or graphic right away, so i just went and rewrote it and regenerated it... here's a graphic showing baseline-determination: > http://z-m-l.com/misc/flatland.jpg i've appended the code which gets those baselines. after that, it is simple to _slice_the_pagescan_ into _lines_ and then interleave each of the lines of text. (you can also probe the slices for paragraph indents, for the shortened last-line-of-paragraph lines, for run-heads with pagenumbers on the outside border, chapter-heads which start relatively low on the page and end-of-chapter pages which end relatively high, footnotes with their small text and thus long lines, title-lines indented on both sides, and blockquotes also indented on both sides, plus image insets which result in abbreviated blocks of paragraph lines, etc. and of course many of those findings can be used to sync up the text-file lines with their pagescan slices. and none of it is difficult at all, not in the slightest.) as far as the interface of the betts' methodology, i'd suggest a less-unpleasant correction modality... ..._except_... ...for the fact that this whole correction strategy is one that is severely misguided and wrong-headed. line-by-line proofing is an unwise investment when the vast majority of lines in the o.c.r. (upwards from 90% in most cases) can _easily_ be made error-free... ...and of course i've been saying that for many years, having presented a veritable raft of supporting data... instead, fix the lines which are _clearly_ incorrect -- i.e., which show up on spellcheck and easy probes -- and then move the near-perfect text into a pleasant smooth-reading environment used by actual readers. there's absolutely no need for a betts-style interface. i mean, really, do what you like, people... but if you think you can find volunteers who will let you waste their time, i think you're likely wasting _your_ time... because d.p. has a lock on that kind of idiot. -bowerbird p.s. and yes, i realize that the interface shown is actually a word-based one, not a line-based one, which actually adds another layer of smudge, but we can safely ignore that for the bigger picture... p.p.s. here's that code... dim x as integer dim y as integer dim solid as color dim question as color dim consec as integer canvas1.graphics.textsize=18 consec=0-99 solid=(canvas1.graphics.pixel(10,10)) for y=10 to canvas1.height-10 for x=25 to canvas1.width-25 question=(canvas1.graphics.pixel(x,y)) if abs(question.red-solid.red)<30 then if abs(question.green-solid.green)<30 then if abs(question.blue-solid.blue)<30 then if x=canvas1.width-25 then consec=consec+1 ' was a solid slice end if else y=y+1 ' was not a solid slice if y<=canvas1.height-10 then x=25 consec=0 end if end if end if next x if consec=4 then canvas1.graphics.forecolor=rgb(0,0,255) canvas1.graphics.drawstring str(y),canvas1.width-15-canvas1.graphics.stringwidth(str(y)),y-3 canvas1.graphics.forecolor=rgb(255,0,0) canvas1.graphics.drawline 0,y,canvas1.width,y end if next y

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Amazon offering a "Free" Lending Library of recent hits
by James Adcock 03 Nov '11

03 Nov '11

"Free" as-in no additional cost to customers who are already paying Amazon $79 a year for "free" all-you-can-eat 2-day shipping. http://tinyurl.com/6f353cj PS: Please don't shoot the messenger - I'm just pointing out "competitive" developments (or not)

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let's concentrate on helping users who need help
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 02 Nov '11

02 Nov '11

jim said: > I know how to hack browsers to do this > but your average book-reader customer does not. i think the "average" person knows how to resize text in their web-browser. but if not, let's teach 'em now! in firefox, which is the browser we are talking about, look under the "view" menu, where you will find "zoom". select "zoom in" for bigger text, "zoom out" for smaller. see, that wasn't so hard, was it? now you're smarter! > If you make the lines shorter it still doesn't wrap lines. ok, so now everyone is in complete agreement here, right? firefox does not wrap the lines when displaying a .txt file. and there's no need for anyone to repeat this yet again, ok? we finally found something that everyone agrees on! great! > ...if one has a display capable of > usably displaying 80 chars per line, > a display which is known generically > as a "teletype display" -- circa 1970. > The teletype was set at this number of chars to use up > the entire width of a standard 8.5 wide roll of paper. gosh darn, jim, thanks so much for that history lesson. if anyone is running firefox on a machine with a screen that is incapable of displaying an eighty-character-line, please say so, and we'll figure out how we can help you. our first suggestion will likely be to abandon the .txt file, and use the .html version instead, because it can reflow... so try that. if it doesn't work, come back for more help! *** walter said: > And this is precisely the kind of message > which makes volunteers go away. > There is nothing constructive about this. walter, i thought you said i was in your kill-file? so how come you're reading my posts, and even quoting them, and replying to them? why, walter? -bowerbird

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ok, keith, sorry i didn't get to you sooner
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 02 Nov '11

02 Nov '11

keith said: > Hi BB, > You ought to use your brain!! i'm sorry, keith. are you feeling left out? i didn't mean to ignore you. it's just that all these people sprung from the woodwork so i got busy responding to their nonsense. but you're right, i shouldn't ignore you. you are a regular contributor here, and it's not right to make you wait on them. kind of like how the quiet behaving kids lose the teacher's attention whenever the troublemakers decide to act out again... not that i'm the "teacher" here. i might be pedantic, but i'm no teacher... so i'm gonna handle you _first_ this morning. > 1) I NEVER said that I agreed > with the use of a revision control system! well, you described some complications with such an approach, to be sure, but you also prefaced all of them by saying: > A revision control system could work. so it's pretty easy to view what you said as showing how to make such a system work. thus it's kind of a mixed bag about whether you "agreed" with what lee was proposing... and lee was most definitely proposing that "a revision control system" be used. indeed, he used that phrase, _word-for-word_, and he even mentioned r.c.s. and c.v.s. by name. and, as shown in the quote from you above, you used that exact same phrase yourself... i mean, if you tell me now that you do _not_ agree with it, i believe you. but from what you wrote in your post, that is very unclear. > I did say in is a possibility, > not that I agree with it. you didn't really just call it a "possibility" -- that word didn't appear in your post -- you said _explicitly_ that it "could work"... if you want to scale that back a bit now, i can accept that. but at the same time, your new position isn't too much better. so you now call it "a possibility" to use a revision control system (e.g., c.v.s.). well, of course, one _could_ certainly use a revision control system for digitization being performed in a collaborative way... but... i'd say it's such a stupid idea that to even consider it "a possibility" is a stupid path. i would rule it out, completely, in 1 second. (surely an idea needs more viability than a 1-second lifespan to be "a possibility".) remember, the idea (which i say is clearly _stupid_) is to put hundreds and hundreds of files -- most of which _never_ change -- in a type of system that's perversely complex, a system designed to keep track of revisions. and even the files that _do_ change are just tiny little text-files, with a couple dozen lines, and most changes are to words in those lines, the kind of edits that do not need (or want!) the dense branching and reversion features that revision control systems are devised for. and "hundreds and hundreds of files" means _for_a_single_book_, and we are discussing doing quite literally _thousands_ of books... so you'd be putting _millions_of_files_ into your very complex revision control system. so if there is any system that "doesn't scale", i would say that it would be _this_ system... i bet the _vast_majority_ of d.p. volunteers have _never_ used a revision control system. heck, i bet a majority of them couldn't even tell you what a revision control system _is_. and if you're gonna depend on volunteers to digitize your books, you've got to view the volunteers at distributed proofreaders as the type of people you will be getting, since they are the only known people on the planet who've stepped up to volunteer. so, in a nutshell, bluntly, if you're counting on "a revision control system", you will fail. because those systems are very complex. so that idea is just ridiculous on its face... for the many reasons which i've described. and to say _anything_else_ is just _stupid_. but hey, i'd love to hear counterarguments. oh wait, you know what? i already have a system that i've written that does the job, simply and efficiently. and it ain't broke, so i have no need to "fix" it, so unless you have a working system already in place that demonstrates what _you_ suggest, then we don't even need to discuss it, ok? thanks. > As a matter of fact I suggest > using a different approach. is this a new suggestion you're now making? because i don't recall you describing it before. in fact, i note that you don't say -- even now -- what this "different approach" is... > 2) I said your approach is workable, > but not scale. sorry, keith, but i can't humor you any more. because i already described how it _would_ scale -- that being the main point -- and i'm not going to repeat the arguments just because you didn't read them the first time. > You talk about a book and > a few people working on it. i talk about how one script handles one book, and the dozen people who will do work on it... at maximum, since if you have more than that, all they're doing is getting in each other's way. in practice, you could have a hundred people operating on it, and the script could handle it, but that's not the optimal way to do this job... and yes, the point is that one script can handle the task of one book with the greatest of ease... > What happens to your system with > thousands of books and lot more people. you seem to have missed the whole point, keith. which is that the system scales easily by having each book in a folder handled by its own script. so to deal with thousands of books, you will create thousands of copies of the script, with each copy handling one book, with great ease. you could have _a_million_ books, and the mantra is the same -- one script per book, handling the task with the greatest of ease. -bowerbird

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can't say i blame you, ben
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 31 Oct '11

31 Oct '11

ben said: > I "love you dearly," Uncle Bowerbird. > But I am unsubscribing from this list. can't say that i blame you, ben, can't blame you a bit... i'd leave myself if they weren't trying to chase me away. this month has been quite distasteful and unproductive. the digest for this month is 206k, which makes it the fifth-largest digest dating back to mid-2004. > 2010/02 = 210k > 2005/09 = 258k > 2005/05 = 222k > 2004/08 = 290k for comparison, from may through august, when i was doing an experiment to see if anyone else would pick up the slack if i just stopped posting, the size ranged from 11k all the way down to 1k. while this month's conflicts recalled the old days... but the nature of this month's traffic was different. back in the old days, it was everybody versus me. this month, with the "build our own d.p." thread, a number of my antagonists turned on each other. and i even had a few people actually _defend_ me, which was novel, especially now with michael gone. of course, in the past, i always cautioned people _not_ to defend me, as it put them in harm's way; it's bad to be in the middle of a wolf-pack attack. but these whippersnappers, like ben, survived it! because the wolves, like all bullies, are cowards... but the bullies do make this an unpleasant place. and to think that it was only just last month that i ran my "sweet grapes" series, a model of positivity. on the other hand, maybe that's what set this all off... "we can't let bowerbird be upbeat; throw mud at him!" -bowerbird

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