On Mon, 29 May 2006, Michael Dyck wrote:
Michael Hart wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2006, Michael Dyck wrote:
I'm not pressuring you to make any point about lines and curves. If you feel pressure to do so, that's unfortunate. If you feel I demanded it, you're mistaken.
You certainly seemed demanding enough for the average reader.
Again, I think you're mistaken (though I wouldn't presume to speak for the average reader). Perhaps you could quote the text in which I was so demanding?
I'll just continue, for the moment, answering what appear to be questions and demands for responses.
I suppose you are stressing the difference between mathematicians and economists and MBA's,
No, I'm not stressing that difference.
Well, from my perspective, that's the major difference between the actually mathematics professors' approaches I researched and used, and the more lax terminology used by MBA's, econmists, et. al. Now that I have pointed out those differences, I think it is quite obvious to all just what the language means, without trying to get down deeply into the jargon, which I appreciate you did not do.
In your first reply to my posting, you made a statement about "an ordinary growth curve", assuming a particular definition for "curve". I disagreed, based on a different definition of "curve". But I also (in the same message!) agreed with you, based on my best guess at what you actually *meant*. (And also disagreed again, based on another possibility for what you meant.)
As above, already plenty obvious to all, I am sure.
Ah, good. I was afraid it wasn't. Sometimes one has to state the obvious in order to find out that it *is* obvious.
I think we both perhaps learned something out this in this instance, and provided enough background for people to see both sides.
So what is the root of the confusion, other than your intention?
I belive the root of the confusion was your use of words that were open to misinterpretation. But I was aware of that possibility, and so responded with respect to various interpretations.
My apologies, I should have been more discrete in that question. I'm glad we took the time to lay out the various interpretations, and I will hopefully include them in something like an FAQ so the future will not require another such discussion without such.
(Of course, there still would have been another problem, namely that you ascribed to me a position I had never taken. It would be nice if you apologized for that.)
Since you insisted on taking that position, I can hardly apologize.
You said "Only if you keep refusing to acknowledge that there was not an ordinary production schedule until 1991. . . ." But I'm pretty confident that I have never refused to acknowledge such a thing. Perhaps you could provide a quote in which I do so? (It seems far more likely that you've simply confused me with someone else.)
My apologies, perhaps I am still ascribing some intent that was not yours, but since we both seem to agree that the issues have been stated, then you and I can hopefully move on to something else.
I can only say that _I_ would like to think that Google, with it's years of planning, $120 billion, 5 multibillion dollar library business partners, and their billion dollar press blitz of 18 months ago, just might have been able to accomplish their goals a bit more quickly than our efforts did.
Well, maybe they will. They're only 18 months in, after all. It took PG 13 years to accomplish its first major goal.
From January 31, 1991 to October 15, 2003. . .definitely a looong time to get from 10 eBook to 10,000.
I guess I just expected/hoped for more from Google. It certainly sounded as if they were ready to start rolling 10,000 books per week off their assembly line, if not more. I note that the press didn't give Yahoo the time of day when their similar announcements came out about a year later. . .I think they also expected more from Google, and once burned were quite shy. I have personally spoken with both the heads of the Google project and the Yahoo project, and I guess I just fell too much for spiels that perhaps I wanted to believe. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE it if either or both of them made a million eBooks available in the next 36 months or so. However, don't get me wrong on the other end, either, I would LIKE those eBooks to be full text, 99.95% to 99.99% accurate and easily downloadable en masse to be used on most hardware/software.
Then why would you want to confuse the issue between linear growth and the growth curve I included as an example?
I don't want to confuse that issue. I don't think I *did* confuse that issue. I quite happily agree that the growth shown in your graph is not linear. And in fact, as I've pointed out before, it's actually quite close to exponential. If you think I said the graph was linear, perhaps you could provide a quote.
You were referring to the portion before 1991, as I saw it, which portion was linear from 1971 through 1979, and later not really starting up again until 1991. . .though perhaps I misunderstood that portion, too, at least from your point of view. Again my apologies for any and all misunderstandings about this, and more thanks for helping me see it from multiple points of view.
-Michael
Thanks!!! Give the world eBooks in 2006!!! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg Blog at http://hart.pglaf.org