On Tue, 23 Feb 2010, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
michael said:
If you have a point to make, you missed.
i think lots of people got the point. but you evidently missed it.
You missed your real point, that it was already time for you to quit.
Take better aim and try again, or give it up.
my aim is true. i've done enough. i have no need to "give up", _or_ to continue. the future is the entity that will deal with this. doesn't matter how much friction we generate. the future will deal.
Gee, I wonder from whom you learned to say that?
and this is how the future will do that dealing:
1. it will need to tell which texts are accurate and which are not, because it will find itself awash in e-books without provenance...
As Paul Klipsch is famous for saying: "There is no such thing as hi-fi. It is fi or not fi, that is all." As I am famous for saying, there aren't any accurate books on paper, in computers, on parchment, scrolls, etc., at least not many, and it appears to me that I should perhaps even include written in stone. However, when all is said and done with eBooks, or even half of it-- eBooks will be more correct than the originals. The paper books will never become as correct/accurate.
2. it will do this determination by comparing digital text to scans. (it will test the validity of the scans by comparing them to p-books.)
Valid. . .what a concept! Reliable. . .a little better. Correct. . .only as far as mimic, copy, etc. Accurate. . .you have to ask the authors, they always say NO!
3. digital text which retained pagination/linebreaks will lend itself better to this comparison process, so it will generally tend to "win", and the "best practice" will come to require this aspect, and strictly.
You just cannot get up there and SAY. . ."OPTION". . .can you??? It will be a tool, but most of those page numbers will not exist for most readers in the future, just as no one knows the page numbers of Homer. ;-) OK. . .of Shakespeare. . . .
4. digital text which is difficult to get to (e.g., zipped up in .epub, obscured by some opaque format, unduly burdened by d.r.m., etc.) and text which has discarded its pagination/linebreaks will lose out.
A digital text wich is difficult to get to, i.e. headers, footers, page #s, will lose out to the majority.
i have no interest in engaging in "debate" on these 4 points, because it's perfectly clear to me that they're all _inevitable_.
the question here is whether p.g. wants its e-texts in group #3 or #4.
The question is will you put your money where your mouth is??? Wagers?