reflections on the nature of argumentation
keith said:
it truly shows that he has no true argument that is decently valid
one more thing here before i leave this all behind... no one here has spent more time over the years entertaining jim and his stupidities... like i said, jim gets stuff "correct" at times, but there are also _many_ other times where he is off the wall... which is probably why the vast majority of you simply ignore him, and have done so for all of the years he has been on this listserve. any cursory examination of the archives will clearly reveal that i am the person who has responded to most of jim's messages. indeed, if my memory serves me correctly, i would say that the only other people who've engaged in any extended interaction with jim on _anything_ approaching "a regular basis" have been keith and michael (who was totally exasperated by jim's posts)... indeed, i'd be willing to bet that _all_of_you_combined_ have responded to jim fewer times total than i have all by myself... i chose to converse with jim since i was attempting to stimulate _any_ kind of dialog here, with _hope_ it would turn interesting. but, as everyone saw, a dialog with jim was far from interesting. it was usually a confusing mess, maddening in its inconsistency. a good dialog is like an extended rally in tennis, where each of the players executes clean return of the ball to the other's court. i was constantly baffled when having dialog with jim, because all of a sudden he'd make points for _my_ side of the debate, while giving the full impression he was arguing _against_ me! it was as if i was playing tennis against someone and suddenly i turned around and found him on _my_ side of the net, hitting the ball back to the empty space on the other side of the court! it woulda been totally bewildering if it wasn't so darn hilarious! (even i am forced to concede that jim _amused_ me quite often, and the arguing-both-sides tack was one of the funniest of all.) at other times, it was as if we were both playing on court #1, but jim was hitting his serves into court #2, or even court #3. and then acting like he had hit an ace! really, jim? seriously? what are you supposed to do when someone "plays" like that? so i was constantly asking myself whether the guy was _really_ that stupid, or if he was just _acting_ that stupid to irk me off. because there coulda been a certain method to his madness. as i've said, there are lots of people who have kill-filed me... so the only things that they "know" that i've supposedly said are the misinterpretations which other people feed to them. so i needed to consider a possibility his crap was deliberate. if he could give the _impression_ that he was defeating me to his audience, then they would actually believe he _was_. there's an old t.v. show called "three's company", where the landlord of an apartment thinks a male occupant, "jack", is _gay_, which is why it's acceptable he's living with two girls. but the guy isn't really gay, they just told the landlord that. still, the landlord _misinterprets_everything_ that happens within his mistaken belief that jack is gay, so he constantly "accumulates" more and more "evidence" that jack _is_ gay, thereby, of course, strengthening future misinterpretation. this is one of the main sources of the comedy in the show. as the audience is wise to the fact that jack is _so_ straight. we know he's mistaken, but we see it "makes sense" to him. and it's just as silly to see the same thing happening here. there is this one group which sees me as "a troll", and they are constantly accumulating more "proof" that that's true, because their "evidence" continues to show that i'm a "troll", thus their misimpression has become truly self-sustaining, even though people who read all posts know that it ain't so. so it could be at least plausible jim takes advantage of that. but after a while, it became clear that it really doesn't matter if jim is "really" that stupid, or if he's just "acting" that stupid. either way, the stuff that comes out of his mouth is _stupid_. so i just decided to stop rewarding that with my own dialog. and now that i've stopped amusing him, jim knows that he has nothing left here anymore, so he's whining about that. he says i'm "not man enough" to respond to his sniveling... hey jim, i _tried_ to dialog with you, for _years_. i gave up. i was the only one who recognized jim on a regular basis, and now i've stopped, and he realizes he has nothing left. tough luck, jim. you used up your last lifeline. so you die. and i can already tell y'all that my decision is a _good_ one. which i always knew it would be, since every other time that i've put someone in my kill-filter, i've been happy that i did, and wondered why it took me so long to come to my senses. i'd guess jim will continue to whine for a while. but i'm done. -bowerbird
no one here has spent more time over the years entertaining jim and his stupidities... like i said, jim gets stuff "correct" at times, but there are also _many_ other times where he is off the wall...
It immediately ceases to be a meaningful debate, worthy of the time and effort that other volunteers put into volunteering at PG, and reading and responding to this venue, when you resort to insult words such as "stupidities" and personal attacks against me -- which are against me simply because the others here who disagree with you refuse to respond to you because they know that your only response is to go on personal attacks against them also and call them names. Therefore you actions result in a "shoutdown" where you "shoutdown" all other conversations on this forum -- and then complain that no dialog happens in this forum except in your own voice. What you call "correct" are simply those times when you think we agree, and what you call "stupid" are simply those times when you think we disagree. If you used the terms "agreement" and "disagreement" rather than "correct" and "stupid" you would have taken a first baby step towards a meaningful conversation, worthy of serious adults.
but, as everyone saw, a dialog with jim was far from interesting. it was usually a confusing mess, maddening in its inconsistency.
a good dialog is like an extended rally in tennis, where each of the
I assure you that it is "consistent" from my point of view, but, since your view and mine are similar in some areas and different in other areas -- and since you assume that anyone who doesn't agree with you 100%, 100% of the time is "stupid" -- thus your own absolutism leads to your own self-confusion about the nature of a conversation, something others here can understand and handle. players executes clean return of the ball to the other's court. What you are describing is not a dialog but rather a debate, with the goal at the end being some small group of "senior adults" declaring a winner. Well, there are no such adults in this forum, nor am I interested in who is declared the winner. I am interesting in creating good books -- not "perfect" books because I don't think ANY books at PG come remotely close to that standard. And I am interested in helping other people do the same thing -- it continues to shock me that PG continues to produce books which clearly "don't work" on many major platforms -- and that the "powers that be" [the senior adults? ;-] don't see that as being a problem! Part of creating a "good book" I believe is maintaining some, not necessarily all, of the nuances of uniqueness of a particular author and a particular publisher, and a major job of a transcriber is understanding these trade-offs -- and how those trade-offs affect the rendering and reading experience on a wide variety of platforms. I personally don't believe that the tools chosen to do these jobs make a heck of a lot of a difference -- rather it is the care and the knowledge of the person doing the job. When part of the job becomes tedious many experienced transcribers simply throw in a regex expression to fix that problem and move on. Again, feedbooks being a counterexample of what it looks like when books are reduced -- by throwing away the unique parts -- to a soulless sameness that if one were to refer back to the original text, one would seen that details of the intent of the author have been needlessly thrown away.
i was constantly baffled when having dialog with jim, because all of a sudden he'd make points for _my_ side of the debate, while giving the full impression he was arguing _against_ me!
Perhaps, again, someone can explain this strange phenomena to BB?
it was as if i was playing tennis against someone and suddenly i turned around and found him on _my_ side of the net, hitting the ball back to the empty space on the other side of the court!
It is indeed exactly like you are playing tennis -- it's just that NOBODY is on the other side of the net -- you are off in your own little world BB, playing your own little game, and keeping your own little score, and throwing up your own little hands in your own self-declared supposed little victory.
there's an old t.v. show called "three's company", where the landlord of an apartment thinks a male occupant, "jack", is _gay_, which is why it's acceptable he's living with two girls.
there is this one group which sees me as "a troll", and they are constantly accumulating more "proof" that that's true, because their "evidence" continues to show that i'm a "troll", thus their misimpression has become
Not sure, Now is BB trying to call me gay? And should I take that as an insult? For the record, I am not gay, but I would be happy to tackle gay lit if it was in interesting well-written book, and I've taken on a lot of chick-lit -- I have a wife and two daughters so chick-lit no longer scares me, and any overt "manliness" on my part has long since been ground into dust. truly self-sustaining, even though people who read all posts know that it ain't so. If you wanted to tune down the number of people who consider you a troll, consider dropping the explicit insults, such as calling people "stupid", and stop engaging in "debate" where you and only you think there are "winners and losers" and try instead to engage in meaningful dialog where you contribute meaningful tools and advice to the volunteers, and stop assuming that you and only you have the only answer to everything.
and now that i've stopped amusing him, jim knows that he has nothing left here anymore, so he's whining about that. he says i'm "not man enough" to respond to his sniveling...
That is not what I said, what I said is that if you are going to continue to insult me and my work on this forum then you should be "man enough" to at least engage in a two-way dialog where I can defend myself against your constant insults. And that you should hold yourself to the same standards you would hold others. But, then again, you never actually read that which I have written. ["Sniveling" -- introducing a new insult word]
tough luck, jim. you used up your last lifeline. so you die.
The "death" metaphors continuing to show how out-of-touch with reality BB has become. Would that this forum NOT be a matter of life or death for BB or for anyone, but rather a source of light, and of pleasure.
Hi Jim, COULD YOU PLEASE, mark your cites. That is, mentioning the original author. Yes, I know these are from BB. Yet, in other posts, it is not obvious! Especially, when you cite different authors. I had requested this before. Am 07.12.2011 um 02:09 schrieb Jim Adcock:
a good dialog is like an extended rally in tennis, where each of the
BB said: players executes clean return of the ball to the other's court.
What you are describing is not a dialog but rather a debate, with the goal at the end being some small group of "senior adults" declaring a winner. Most of what is going on is more a debate than a discussion. Then again, what is actually the difference between a discussion and a debate.
Well, there are no such adults in this forum, nor am I interested in who is declared the winner. I am interesting in creating good books -- not Does need to be a winner.
I would assume that that you and others here are seasoned enough, to ignore certain mannerisms. If you are truly interested in a discussion you should just ignore the personal and make your points. Thought the decades here on the list that there is to much interest whether one is personally offense or all to emotional. As you mention we should focus on how to create books. As far as that is concerned BB makes very good points and methods there is no doubt to that. BB is correct in one respect. There is far too much concern with his person on this list. He has every right to be touchy about that. regards Keith.
On Tue, December 6, 2011 6:09 pm, Jim Adcock wrote:
It immediately ceases to be a meaningful debate, worthy of the time and effort that other volunteers put into volunteering at PG, and reading and responding to this venue, when you resort to insult words such as "stupidities" and personal attacks against me -- which are against me simply because the others here who disagree with you refuse to respond to you because they know that your only response is to go on personal attacks against them also and call them names. Therefore you actions result in a "shoutdown" where you "shoutdown" all other conversations on this forum -- and then complain that no dialog happens in this forum except in your own voice.
So who's crazier, looney old uncle Bruce, who sits in the corner talking to himself and playing games based on rules he makes up as he goes along, or his nephew James who keeps trying to engage him in rational, but futile, conversation? Sometimes BowerBird says something that can be the seed of a good conversation, in which case I think it's advisable to expand and discuss the idea without necessarily including (or excluding) him. Other times he says things that are just plain factually wrong, in which case I think a correction is in order, not to persuade him that he is wrong, but just to keep other people from thinking that a certain state is the case when it is not. But there are a lot of crackpots on the internet, and if you're going to get bent out of shape just because one of them calls your ideas stupid or inconsistent, you are going to be sad and frustrated 80% of the time. Shake it off. Spend your time developing ideas and trying to express them clearly, and then let those ideas speak for themselves. If someone else thinks the ideas are stupid, then it's their problem, not yours. Usually (although not always :) ) reasonableness wins over crankiness.
Other times he says things that are just plain factually wrong, in which case I think a correction is in order, not to persuade him that he is wrong, but just to keep other people from thinking that a certain state is the case when it is not.
But when I call out something that BB says which is simply factually wrong, for example if he says XYZ is the only way to do the job, and I in fact use ABC instead to do the job, then he begins a long tirade about how "stupid" I am -- which only results in people putting "kill files" on both our names, in which case I can no longer engage in "meaningful" conversation either. This is what is called a "shoutdown" -- making sure that people who disagree with you are not even allowed to engage in the discussion.
Anyone figure out how to successfully install epubmaker on windows? Can you fill me in on where the install instructions go wrong?
On 12/07/2011 05:34 AM, Jim Adcock wrote:
Anyone figure out how to successfully install epubmaker on windows?
Can you fill me in on where the install instructions go wrong?
What error messages do you get? -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org
Below is a trace of the install results: C:\Users\Jim>cd C:\Users\Jim\Downloads C:\Users\Jim\Downloads>python-2.7.2.msi C:\Users\Jim\Downloads>setuptools-0.6c11.win32-py2.7.exe C:\Users\Jim\Downloads>cd tidy C:\Users\Jim\Downloads\tidy>tidy /? Error: Can't open "/?" To learn more about HTML Tidy see http://tidy.sourceforge.net Please fill bug reports and queries using the "tracker" on the Tidy web site. Additionally, questions can be sent to html-tidy@w3.org HTML and CSS specifications are available from http://www.w3.org/ Lobby your company to join W3C, see http://www.w3.org/Consortium C:\Users\Jim\Downloads\tidy>cd .. C:\Users\Jim\Downloads>groff-1.20.1-setup.exe C:\Users\Jim\Downloads>cd .. C:\Users\Jim>cd epubmaker-0.3.18 C:\Users\Jim\epubmaker-0.3.18>c:\python27\scripts\easy_install.exe epubmaker Searching for epubmaker Best match: epubmaker 0.3.18 Processing epubmaker-0.3.18-py2.7.egg epubmaker 0.3.18 is already the active version in easy-install.pth Installing epubmaker-script.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing epubmaker.exe script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing epubmaker.exe.manifest script to c:\python27\Scripts Using c:\python27\lib\site-packages\epubmaker-0.3.18-py2.7.egg Processing dependencies for epubmaker Searching for lxml>=2.2.8 Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/lxml/ Reading http://codespeak.net/lxml Best match: lxml 2.3.2 Downloading http://lxml.de/files/lxml-2.3.2.tgz Processing lxml-2.3.2.tgz Running lxml-2.3.2\setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir c:\users\jim\appdata\local\t emp\easy_install-ymb5ag\lxml-2.3.2\egg-dist-tmp-_qr5wn Building lxml version 2.3.2. Building without Cython. ERROR: 'xslt-config' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. ** make sure the development packages of libxml2 and libxslt are installed ** Using build configuration of libxslt warning: no files found matching 'lxml.etree.c' under directory 'src\lxml' warning: no files found matching 'lxml.objectify.c' under directory 'src\lxml' warning: no files found matching 'lxml.etree.h' under directory 'src\lxml' warning: no files found matching 'lxml.etree_api.h' under directory 'src\lxml' warning: no files found matching 'etree_defs.h' under directory 'src\lxml' warning: no files found matching 'pubkey.asc' under directory 'doc' warning: no files found matching 'tagpython*.png' under directory 'doc' warning: no files found matching 'Makefile' under directory 'doc' error: Setup script exited with error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat C:\Users\Jim\epubmaker-0.3.18>cd epubmaker-0.3.18 C:\Users\Jim\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker-0.3.18>cd epubmaker C:\Users\Jim\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker>c:\Python27\python. exe epubmaker.py --help Traceback (most recent call last): File "epubmaker.py", line 28, in <module> from epubmaker.lib import Logger, DublinCore File "build\bdist.win32\egg\epubmaker\lib\DublinCore.py", line 20, in <module> ImportError: No module named lxml C:\Users\Jim\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker>
On 12/08/2011 04:17 AM, Jim Adcock wrote:
Building lxml version 2.3.2. Building without Cython. ERROR: 'xslt-config' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Install the precompiled lxml package from here: http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/ If it complains about PIL, install that one too. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org
Marcello: Install the precompiled lxml package from here:
http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/ OK I install lxml as suggested then I reinstalled-over epubmaker and got some warning messages (see immediate below.) Then I tried running epubmaker --help and it exits clean with a meaningful help message. Then I tried running epubmaker with file and some guessed parms (see after "=====") and got traceback sometime after epubmaker at least had discovered iso char set, I think: [I also tried your suggestion re PIL out of desperation and that didn't change the resulting error messages at all, except when over-installing epubmaker once-again after PIL I don't get any installation warning messages. Same runtime error messages though.] C:\Users\Jim\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker>c:\python27\scripts \eas y_install.exe epubmaker Searching for epubmaker Best match: epubmaker 0.3.18 Processing epubmaker-0.3.18-py2.7.egg epubmaker 0.3.18 is already the active version in easy-install.pth Installing epubmaker-script.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing epubmaker.exe script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing epubmaker.exe.manifest script to c:\python27\Scripts Using c:\python27\lib\site-packages\epubmaker-0.3.18-py2.7.egg Processing dependencies for epubmaker Searching for docutils>=0.7 Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/docutils/ Reading http://docutils.sourceforge.net/ Best match: docutils 0.8.1 Downloading http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/docutils/docutils-0.8.1.tar.gz?do wnload Processing docutils-0.8.1.tar.gz Running docutils-0.8.1\setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir c:\users\jim\appdata\loc al\temp\easy_install-tjtcmd\docutils-0.8.1\egg-dist-tmp-shqd8r warning: no files found matching 'MANIFEST' warning: no previously-included files matching '.cvsignore' found under director y '*' warning: no previously-included files matching '*.pyc' found under directory '*' warning: no previously-included files matching '*~' found under directory '*' warning: no previously-included files matching '.DS_Store' found under directory '*' zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents... docutils.parsers.rst.directives.misc: module references __file__ docutils.writers.html4css1.__init__: module references __file__ docutils.writers.latex2e.__init__: module references __file__ docutils.writers.odf_odt.__init__: module references __file__ docutils.writers.pep_html.__init__: module references __file__ docutils.writers.s5_html.__init__: module references __file__ Adding docutils 0.8.1 to easy-install.pth file Installing rst2html.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rst2latex.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rst2man.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rst2odt.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rst2odt_prepstyles.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rst2pseudoxml.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rst2s5.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rst2xetex.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rst2xml.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installing rstpep2html.py script to c:\python27\Scripts Installed c:\python27\lib\site-packages\docutils-0.8.1-py2.7.egg Finished processing dependencies for epubmaker ====== C:\Users\Jim\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker-0.3.18\epubmaker>c:\Python27\python. exe epubmaker.py -v --output-dir=testOut --make=epub http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ 28948/28948-h/28948-h.htm INFO:root:Got charset ISO-8859-1 from html meta INFO:root:Trying charset iso-8859-1 ... Traceback (most recent call last): File "epubmaker.py", line 343, in <module> main () File "epubmaker.py", line 218, in main options) File "build\bdist.win32\egg\epubmaker\Spider.py", line 83, in parse parser.parse () File "build\bdist.win32\egg\epubmaker\parsers\HTMLParser.py", line 356, in par se # Overridable -- handle processing instruction File "build\bdist.win32\egg\epubmaker\parsers\HTMLParser.py", line 183, in tid y match = entityref.match(rawdata, i) File "c:\Python27\lib\subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__ errread, errwrite) File "c:\Python27\lib\subprocess.py", line 893, in _execute_child startupinfo) WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified
On 12/10/2011 12:12 AM, Jim Adcock wrote:
File "build\bdist.win32\egg\epubmaker\parsers\HTMLParser.py", line 183, in tid y match = entityref.match(rawdata, i) File "c:\Python27\lib\subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__ errread, errwrite) File "c:\Python27\lib\subprocess.py", line 893, in _execute_child startupinfo) WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified
It cannot find tidy. Make sure "tidy" is in the path. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org
Am 05.12.2011 um 19:13 schrieb Bowerbird@aol.com:
[snip, snip]
i was constantly baffled when having dialog with jim, because all of a sudden he'd make points for _my_ side of the debate, while giving the full impression he was arguing _against_ me! Ever had a course in rhetorics or debating!
it was as if i was playing tennis against someone and suddenly i turned around and found him on _my_ side of the net, hitting the ball back to the empty space on the other side of the court! [snip, snip]
at other times, it was as if we were both playing on court #1, but jim was hitting his serves into court #2, or even court #3. and then acting like he had hit an ace! really, jim? seriously? See above! Bad style.
what are you supposed to do when someone "plays" like that? Do you expect me to advise a old hand.
so i was constantly asking myself whether the guy was _really_ that stupid, or if he was just _acting_ that stupid to irk me off.
because there coulda been a certain method to his madness. see above! [snip, snip]
there is this one group which sees me as "a troll", and they are constantly accumulating more "proof" that that's true, because their "evidence" continues to show that i'm a "troll", thus their misimpression has become truly self-sustaining, even though people who read all posts know that it ain't so. No, you are not a troll! At least not in the sense used for forums. More, in your mannerism.
O.K. Kiddies. lets get back to work playtime is over. P.S. I have not forgotten that I have some pseudo code to offer. I just do not have the time to post. Will offer it up as soon as I have enough time. regards Keith.
participants (5)
-
Bowerbird＠aol.com -
Jim Adcock -
Keith J. Schultz -
Lee Passey -
Marcello Perathoner