I have invited Mr. Bowerbird, on numerous occasion, both public and private, to collaborate with PG/me, and the response has always been minimal at best or negative at the worst. As with so many who have proposed ways to "save" PG over the years, Mr. Bowerbird insists that I/we are to collaborate with him, rather than him to be that who would be called the collaborator. I am very interested, always have been, will be and it has been totally consistent that I have offered, along with our CEO, all the hardware, software, and publicity that Mr. Bowerbird would like to use with the advent of his variously formatted & reformatted varieties of his eBooks. HOWEVER, THE RESULTS HAVE BEEN "MINIMAL AT BEST AND NEGATIVE AT THE WORST," and I, along with others of our various groups can't help Mr. Bowerbird pull up rabbits out of his hat if he doesn't put them in at some previous juncture. . .a juncture which he is a completely consistent consummate counterexample to. As always, if and when Mr. Bowerbird condecends for whatever reason to put any of his rabbits in a hat, we will be more than happy to shout "ABRACADABRA!!" and to give him all the credit for said eBooks. If he had, in each of his vendettas against eBooks, of the current varieties, just provided a few eBook samples from the current "best seller" list, I will bet we could have gotten his required feedback. However, without the actual eBooks in hand, to hand out to whomever, the process remains theoretical in the sense that Mr. Bowerbird insists, along with so many others who have claimed much the same, that WE must do the work for him. This would certainly happen if Mr. Bowerbird should "lead by example" by producing just ONE of his more than fabulous eBooks per week, or even per month. I, myself, would prefer as he stated, a feedback of a daily nature, but I will leave that for later and am now content to let days appear to be weeks. There really would be no better time Mr. Bowerbird, than right now, as this truly is: The Year of the eBook, And as you can see, I am willing to give all credit to the volunteers who actually create the eBooks. So, Mr. Bowerbird, I have polished up the crown you always demand, and it is just waiting for you. All you have to do is pull the rabbit out of a hat, or was it the sword out of my stony heart. . . . On Fri, 18 Feb 2011, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
time after time, i have offered to collaborate with people on this listserve to do a project...
nobody, including michael hart, is interested.
over the years, a lotta people here called me names, called my work "vaporware", said it was "impossible" to do what i suggested, and insulted me some more.
throughout, i have continued to do my research.
i've learned a lot in the process, and i've wanted to pass this knowledge along. but nobody cares.
i've offered bits and pieces of my work repeatedly, and nobody even looked at it, as far as i could tell.
and yet those same people came back at me with bogus "vaporware" charges, over and over again... it's as if they think that if they refuse to look at it, it doesn't exist. that's how freaking stupid they are.
meanwhile, people at d.p. struggle to make e-books, because they don't have the best tools they could have.
i work hard. i've done a lot. i've created some stuff that it would be _good_ for you people to know about.
but i'm tired of trying to bang sense into your heads.
i have asked you to take some extremely small steps, just give daily feedback on a project that evolves daily, and you're not even willing to do _that_, even though with my guidance you could have something awesome in a matter of weeks, since i know the territory so well.
i'm not gonna work my ass off to _hand_ you something, when you can't even be bothered to write a simple post saying "i would like a program that did x, and y, and z."
i'll go off and show the rest of the world what i know, because they are actively looking for a _simple_way_ to make electronic-books. i offered it to _you_ first, so you could have offered it to the world as your baby, battle-tested and all, but you weren't interested in it.
and while i am showing it to the world, i will be here, too, every day, telling you how you could have had this thing, but you were too proud and stupid to know you wanted it. even though you are still struggling every day, trying to invent the things that i already have working perfectly well.
so call me all the names you want, you twisted individuals, because i am tougher than you will ever be, count on it...
-bowerbird