From jbuck814366460 at aol.com Wed Oct 13 22:52:48 2010 From: jbuck814366460 at aol.com (jbuck814366460 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 01:52:48 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] (no subject) Message-ID: <8CD397B2AA4BE02-10E8-9EC2@Webmail-d125.sysops.aol.com> http://jbuck814366460.lookit-c.com From klofstrom at gmail.com Wed Oct 13 23:45:54 2010 From: klofstrom at gmail.com (Karen Lofstrom) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:45:54 -1000 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: (no subject) In-Reply-To: <8CD397B2AA4BE02-10E8-9EC2@Webmail-d125.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CD397B2AA4BE02-10E8-9EC2@Webmail-d125.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 7:52 PM, wrote: > http://jbuck814366460.lookit-c.com I'll bet this is malware. I'm sure as heck not going to click the URL to find out. -- Karen Lofstrom From klofstrom at gmail.com Sat Oct 16 23:53:10 2010 From: klofstrom at gmail.com (Karen Lofstrom) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2010 20:53:10 -1000 Subject: [gutvol-d] What texts need for scholarly usage Message-ID: When texts are displayed on various ereaders, the pagination is going to vary depending on the screen size, font chosen, etc. There's no way that you can usefully refer to Tractatus p. 15, say. Page references work ONLY when everyone is using the same deadtree text. What ebooks need is a software utility that can overlay any text with the same sort of reference system used for works like the Bible or the Qur'an. Matthew 5: 9 or Sura 24 Ayat 25. Only a system like this can cope with books printed/displayed in many editions and formats. It would have to be written to work with the most common ebook formats, and should be an add-on that could be toggled on or off. Most of the time you wouldn't want it, but when you did need to refer to a certain passage, you could turn it on. Wouldn't this be simple to code, if the book has a TOC with chapter headings? -- Karen Lofstrom From schultzk at uni-trier.de Sun Oct 17 02:57:22 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 11:57:22 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi. I do not understand what you are getting at. First Tractatus is logically number thereby already giving a reference system, namely the Wittgenstein'sche Nummierung! That is statements are already enumerated at can be referenced that way! If I understand you correctly, you want to have some sort of reference system built into the ebooks so that one may easily find a particular place in an ebook. Why reinvent the wheel. for many literary works there are already ways of referencing the text. E.g Drama Act I scene II line 5; In poems line number, latin text have there sentences number, etc. I understand the problem of different edition and have had to deal with them. In the world of acedemica there are rules for proper citation of texts and they include all information right down to the edition used. Now, for use in the class room there is always the problem of finding a particular text position when the class has different editions. That is why teachers often require that a particular text edition is used, so that in chapter xyz on page 123 JKL writes ... ! I have been in class where the on page 123 did not work. The communication was then "in the beginning/middle/end of chapter xyz" or "in the second paragraph of chapter xyz"! It works. everybody was able to find the text passage in their PRINTED BOOKS. As mentioned below, if a ebook has a TOC have of this work is done. Jump to the chapter, or search for the chapter heading, or jump to the page given in the TOC. Then ..., I believe you get the idea it is no different than using printed material. Naturally, in the electronic age it should be simpler. Well, one could always look for the text with find!! Still not satisfactory. The question would be what kind of reference can be used. Sentence numbering could be one way, but their might be differences in the algorithm, and then there is the problem of those without ebooks. I do not see this a problem particular to ebooks, but as a problem of the classroom in general. As we all know there are book editions which lend themselves easier for use in the classroom than others. So it comes down to the ebook having the PROPER information in it. I do not there is any feasible way to do this. I mean how to tell an ebook jump to Matthew 5:9 or Sura 24 Ayat 25 (???) unless you have a link for this. regards Keith. Am 17.10.2010 um 08:53 schrieb Karen Lofstrom: > When texts are displayed on various ereaders, the pagination is going > to vary depending on the screen size, font chosen, etc. There's no way > that you can usefully refer to Tractatus p. 15, say. Page references > work ONLY when everyone is using the same deadtree text. > > What ebooks need is a software utility that can overlay any text with > the same sort of reference system used for works like the Bible or the > Qur'an. Matthew 5: 9 or Sura 24 Ayat 25. Only a system like this can > cope with books printed/displayed in many editions and formats. > > It would have to be written to work with the most common ebook > formats, and should be an add-on that could be toggled on or off. Most > of the time you wouldn't want it, but when you did need to refer to a > certain passage, you could turn it on. > > Wouldn't this be simple to code, if the book has a TOC with chapter headings? > > -- > Karen Lofstrom > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d From hart at pglaf.org Sun Oct 17 09:47:29 2010 From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael S. Hart) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 09:47:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Why make it harder than it has to be? Why reinvent the wheel yet again? A simple search for even just three short words such as: "not to be" will get us to Hamlet's soliliquy without much undue odd outragous fortune, and it will get us there very well in just about any edition. If you just add a word or two, it's even faster. . . . Page numbers just get you to the right page, a thousand, even plural thousands of characters might be there. When "not to be" is the right hit, it's also the place a person wants on the "page," not that pages are anything, anything at all, that arbitray publisher distinctions in nearly all cases. . . . On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, Keith J. Schultz wrote: > Hi. > I do not understand what you are getting at. > First Tractatus is logically number thereby already giving a reference > system, namely the Wittgenstein'sche Nummierung! > That is statements are already enumerated at can be referenced that way! > > If I understand you correctly, you want to have some sort of reference system > built into the ebooks so that one may easily find a particular place in an ebook. > > Why reinvent the wheel. for many literary works there are already ways of > referencing the text. E.g Drama Act I scene II line 5; In poems line number, latin text have > there sentences number, etc. > > I understand the problem of different edition and have had to deal with them. > In the world of acedemica there are rules for proper citation of texts and they > include all information right down to the edition used. > > Now, for use in the class room there is always the problem of finding a particular > text position when the class has different editions. That is why teachers often require that > a particular text edition is used, so that in chapter xyz on page 123 JKL writes ... ! > I have been in class where the on page 123 did not work. The communication was then > "in the beginning/middle/end of chapter xyz" or "in the second paragraph of chapter xyz"! > It works. everybody was able to find the text passage in their PRINTED BOOKS. > > As mentioned below, if a ebook has a TOC have of this work is done. Jump to the chapter, or > search for the chapter heading, or jump to the page given in the TOC. Then ..., I believe you > get the idea it is no different than using printed material. > > Naturally, in the electronic age it should be simpler. Well, one could always look for the > text with find!! > > Still not satisfactory. The question would be what kind of reference can be used. Sentence numbering > could be one way, but their might be differences in the algorithm, and then there is the problem > of those without ebooks. > > I do not see this a problem particular to ebooks, but as a problem of the classroom in general. > As we all know there are book editions which lend themselves easier for use in the classroom > than others. So it comes down to the ebook having the PROPER information in it. > > I do not there is any feasible way to do this. I mean how to tell an ebook jump to > Matthew 5:9 or Sura 24 Ayat 25 (???) unless you have a link for this. > > regards > Keith. > > Am 17.10.2010 um 08:53 schrieb Karen Lofstrom: > > > When texts are displayed on various ereaders, the pagination is going > > to vary depending on the screen size, font chosen, etc. There's no way > > that you can usefully refer to Tractatus p. 15, say. Page references > > work ONLY when everyone is using the same deadtree text. > > > > What ebooks need is a software utility that can overlay any text with > > the same sort of reference system used for works like the Bible or the > > Qur'an. Matthew 5: 9 or Sura 24 Ayat 25. Only a system like this can > > cope with books printed/displayed in many editions and formats. > > > > It would have to be written to work with the most common ebook > > formats, and should be an add-on that could be toggled on or off. Most > > of the time you wouldn't want it, but when you did need to refer to a > > certain passage, you could turn it on. > > > > Wouldn't this be simple to code, if the book has a TOC with chapter headings? > > > > -- > > Karen Lofstrom > > _______________________________________________ > > gutvol-d mailing list > > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > From joregan at gmail.com Sun Oct 17 10:07:25 2010 From: joregan at gmail.com (Jimmy O'Regan) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 18:07:25 +0100 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 17 October 2010 07:53, Karen Lofstrom wrote: > When texts are displayed on various ereaders, the pagination is going > to vary depending on the screen size, font chosen, etc. There's no way > that you can usefully refer to Tractatus p. 15, say. Page references > work ONLY when everyone is using the same deadtree text. Most e-readers use HTML (albeit indirectly), and HTML already has a standard for references: If you want to find, say, act 2 scene 3 of the Polish translation of Romeo and Juliet, you can: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27062/27062-h/27062-h.htm#Akt2_Scena3 Most PG HTML editions these days keep the original page numbers (to the extent possible). Want to see what was on page 42 of that book? http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27062/27062-h/27062-h.htm#Page_42 -- jimregan, that's because deep inside you, you are evil. Also not-so-deep inside you. From Bowerbird at aol.com Sun Oct 17 11:59:49 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 14:59:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage Message-ID: <138d64.5dab3390.39eca1a5@aol.com> there are very good arguments for pagination. but don't expect karen lofstrom to make them. if you want to discuss the issues, we can, but i see no real need to retread this ground now. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Sun Oct 17 12:45:46 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 15:45:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] quarterly report on fadedpage, through september 2010 Message-ID: <9c8d4.3fe837ea.39ecac69@aol.com> i wrote this a couple weeks back, but i forgot to send it. that's a good thing, too, because there have been recent developments, which i have only now just caught up on... but first, read this... *** i see it's time for another quarterly report on fadedpage. fadedpage.net is roger frank's experimental creation of a collab digitization site, a la distributed proofreaders... it's been up for 9 months now. there's a lot to like about this site -- a lot to like -- so i wish i could report that it's going strong. but it's not. it did grow steadily for the first 6-7 months, but lately, it seems to be shrinking back. it typically has around a half-dozen people active in the last-24-hour-period, and on average about a dozen active in the last week... on the positive side, most of the kinks have now been ironed out, and the workflow seems to be fairly steady. the site has been brave about trying out new stuff, and a number of things have proven themselves as valuable. among these are a "roundless" approach, with a certain flavor of its own, as developed by roger, so that's good. he quickly abandoned -- in practice, if not in his head -- some of the questionable aspects he had had originally, and then settled into a system that was quite acceptable. another innovation was "match the scan" methodology that's a refreshing shift from the tired pseudo-markup kludged together over time at distributed proofreaders. roger has also been good about coding features that are requested by his users. one of those is _global_search_, which is something that i think d.p. _still_ doesn't have, despite many people having suggested it for years now. roger leveraged the roundless mode such that _diffs_ were available quite quickly to users, which makes 'em entirely more useful than they typically are over at d.p. roger also trusted his users, deeply. one example of it is that any user could _immediately_ put a word on the "good word" or "bad word" lists used by the spellchecker. over at d.p., a user can only "suggest" a word, which then must be approved by a higher-up, which is a bit insulting, not to mention inefficient. this implicit trust in the user goes a long way, and it speaks volumes to the community. so, all in all, fadedpage can be judged as a big success... but it's hard for me to get too excited about fadedpage, mostly because it has failed to attract a critical mass yet. it's a big success. but it's not a big community -- at all... i'm not sure if that's because roger doesn't want one yet, or if d.p. has sucked all the energy out of this sphere, but whatever the cause, it's frustrating for the name of change. *** it's also ironic that roger seems to constantly "discover" points that i've been making repeatedly over the years... for instance, here's something current from his forums: > I could have an application run locally > on each proofer's machine, connecting to fadedpage > through XML/RPC for pages. The local application > would be better than anything I could do in a browser. > The user's app would check out a page > and all processing would be locally. When done, > the page would be returned to fadedpage. > This is conceptually exciting and I've done some > preliminary testing of the concept with a DP user. > There are some technical hurdles but it's still > a potential project for down the road. yeah, i've been saying that for years... i've even coded the app. but i'm glad that it's "conceptually exciting"... it's also frustrating that roger seems not to have absorbed some of the lessons that he _had_ learned along the way... here's another something recent in the forums: > scanno: Van Home for Van Horne fairly consistently. > Marked "Home" as a bad word, "Horne" as a good word. those of you who have been here for years will recognize that i would just make that a global change done in preprocessing. this little bad-words/good-words dance, forcing volunteers to find and fix each individual instance of the error, is ridiculous. roger is also wasting a lot of his time trying to create a "master" format that can churn out the various kinds of output he wants. you're reinventing the wheel, roger. i've already done that work. a master format already exists; it's called zen markup language. oh yeah, there's one more thing that bugs me about fadedpage, which is that roger's answer, for may things the volunteers ask, is "don't worry about that, the post-processor will take care of it"... so, on the one hand, he's built a system that empowers volunteers -- by giving them the power to take a page from o.c.r. to "final" -- but then, on the other hand, rips the new empowerment from them by constantly reminding them that _someone_else_ will be making the _real_ decisions _after_ their work is done. it's a sad irony, it is. roger will not achieve the breakthrough that he's looking for _until_ he decides to do the bulk of the "automatic" work in _preprocessing_, and then lets his volunteers seize the power to move the work to final, thereby _eliminating_ the need for any "postprocessing" at all... voila! *** in closing, though, i repeat that fadedpage has been a _success_... however, it has failed to attract critical mass. this is a problem... i don't know what to do about this problem. in the past, i have suggested that project gutenberg funnel volunteers to fadedpage, and i know that michael was willing to do that. but i don't know what roger thought about the idea. and i don't know why it never seemed to materialize. fadedpage has done a good job of testing some new ideas, and these experiments have paid off, but it won't do anybody any good if nobody ever learns from these experiments. let's hope someone catches on quickly... -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schultzk at uni-trier.de Mon Oct 18 01:42:30 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:42:30 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: <138d64.5dab3390.39eca1a5@aol.com> References: <138d64.5dab3390.39eca1a5@aol.com> Message-ID: <8247A170-AA17-4872-A993-75AD24A0F850@uni-trier.de> Am 17.10.2010 um 20:59 schrieb Bowerbird at aol.com: > there are very good arguments for pagination. I do not that there was an argument against pagination. > > but don't expect karen lofstrom to make them. Karen idea is intriguing in so far as making ebooks more aceptable for use in the classroom. But, what Karen proposed would only be of use if it desired and used by educators. As a their are no major efforts of the educators to have such a standard, I believe that such a effort will not find a base. > > if you want to discuss the issues, we can, but > i see no real need to retread this ground now. Yes, and no. It is always good to revisit "old" ideas from time to time. Sometime, new aspects and twists arise. regards Keith. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schultzk at uni-trier.de Mon Oct 18 01:44:05 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:44:05 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Agreed. Am 17.10.2010 um 18:47 schrieb Michael S. Hart: > > Why make it harder than it has to be? > > Why reinvent the wheel yet again? > > A simple search for even just three short words such as: > > "not to be" > > will get us to Hamlet's soliliquy without much undue odd > outragous fortune, and it will get us there very well in > just about any edition. > > If you just add a word or two, it's even faster. . . . > > Page numbers just get you to the right page, a thousand, > even plural thousands of characters might be there. > > When "not to be" is the right hit, it's also the place a > person wants on the "page," not that pages are anything, > anything at all, that arbitray publisher distinctions in > nearly all cases. . . From schultzk at uni-trier.de Mon Oct 18 02:00:27 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:00:27 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: quarterly report on fadedpage, through september 2010 In-Reply-To: <9c8d4.3fe837ea.39ecac69@aol.com> References: <9c8d4.3fe837ea.39ecac69@aol.com> Message-ID: <626FBE3D-7EEF-475B-8E3D-6CDC896B4733@uni-trier.de> It is good to see Rogers site is making good headway. It also, seems to be very productive considering its base size. As the site is actively producing texts I think a mention on the PG Homepage would be nice. BB it is Rogers site and as you say the proof is the puddin' ;-) I do not it is fair to Roger to say he does not trust his base. I look at as "quality control". Even one of the biggest collaborative efforts on the web Wikipedia has "Masters" that make final decisions. So that idea can not be all that bad. regards Keith. Am 17.10.2010 um 21:45 schrieb Bowerbird at aol.com: > i wrote this a couple weeks back, but i forgot to send it. > > that's a good thing, too, because there have been recent > developments, which i have only now just caught up on... > > but first, read this... > > *** > > i see it's time for another quarterly report on fadedpage. > > fadedpage.net is roger frank's experimental creation of > a collab digitization site, a la distributed proofreaders... > it's been up for 9 months now. > > there's a lot to like about this site -- a lot to like -- so > i wish i could report that it's going strong. but it's not. > > it did grow steadily for the first 6-7 months, but lately, > it seems to be shrinking back. it typically has around > a half-dozen people active in the last-24-hour-period, > and on average about a dozen active in the last week... > > on the positive side, most of the kinks have now been > ironed out, and the workflow seems to be fairly steady. > the site has been brave about trying out new stuff, and > a number of things have proven themselves as valuable. > > among these are a "roundless" approach, with a certain > flavor of its own, as developed by roger, so that's good. > he quickly abandoned -- in practice, if not in his head -- > some of the questionable aspects he had had originally, > and then settled into a system that was quite acceptable. > > another innovation was "match the scan" methodology > that's a refreshing shift from the tired pseudo-markup > kludged together over time at distributed proofreaders. > > roger has also been good about coding features that are > requested by his users. one of those is _global_search_, > which is something that i think d.p. _still_ doesn't have, > despite many people having suggested it for years now. > > roger leveraged the roundless mode such that _diffs_ > were available quite quickly to users, which makes 'em > entirely more useful than they typically are over at d.p. > > roger also trusted his users, deeply. one example of it > is that any user could _immediately_ put a word on the > "good word" or "bad word" lists used by the spellchecker. > over at d.p., a user can only "suggest" a word, which then > must be approved by a higher-up, which is a bit insulting, > not to mention inefficient. this implicit trust in the user > goes a long way, and it speaks volumes to the community. > > so, all in all, fadedpage can be judged as a big success... > > but it's hard for me to get too excited about fadedpage, > mostly because it has failed to attract a critical mass yet. > it's a big success. but it's not a big community -- at all... > > i'm not sure if that's because roger doesn't want one yet, > or if d.p. has sucked all the energy out of this sphere, but > whatever the cause, it's frustrating for the name of change. > > *** > > it's also ironic that roger seems to constantly "discover" > points that i've been making repeatedly over the years... > > for instance, here's something current from his forums: > > I could have an application run locally > > on each proofer's machine, connecting to fadedpage > > through XML/RPC for pages. The local application > > would be better than anything I could do in a browser. > > The user's app would check out a page > > and all processing would be locally. When done, > > the page would be returned to fadedpage. > > This is conceptually exciting and I've done some > > preliminary testing of the concept with a DP user. > > There are some technical hurdles but it's still > > a potential project for down the road. > > yeah, i've been saying that for years... i've even coded > the app. but i'm glad that it's "conceptually exciting"... > > it's also frustrating that roger seems not to have absorbed > some of the lessons that he _had_ learned along the way... > > here's another something recent in the forums: > > scanno: Van Home for Van Horne fairly consistently. > > Marked "Home" as a bad word, "Horne" as a good word. > > those of you who have been here for years will recognize that > i would just make that a global change done in preprocessing. > this little bad-words/good-words dance, forcing volunteers to > find and fix each individual instance of the error, is ridiculous. > > roger is also wasting a lot of his time trying to create a "master" > format that can churn out the various kinds of output he wants. > you're reinventing the wheel, roger. i've already done that work. > a master format already exists; it's called zen markup language. > > oh yeah, there's one more thing that bugs me about fadedpage, > which is that roger's answer, for may things the volunteers ask, is > "don't worry about that, the post-processor will take care of it"... > > so, on the one hand, he's built a system that empowers volunteers > -- by giving them the power to take a page from o.c.r. to "final" -- > but then, on the other hand, rips the new empowerment from them > by constantly reminding them that _someone_else_ will be making > the _real_ decisions _after_ their work is done. it's a sad irony, it is. > > roger will not achieve the breakthrough that he's looking for _until_ > he decides to do the bulk of the "automatic" work in _preprocessing_, > and then lets his volunteers seize the power to move the work to final, > thereby _eliminating_ the need for any "postprocessing" at all... voila! > > *** > > in closing, though, i repeat that fadedpage has been a _success_... > > however, it has failed to attract critical mass. this is a problem... > > i don't know what to do about this problem. in the past, i have > suggested that project gutenberg funnel volunteers to fadedpage, > and i know that michael was willing to do that. but i don't know > what roger thought about the idea. and i don't know why it never > seemed to materialize. fadedpage has done a good job of testing > some new ideas, and these experiments have paid off, but it won't > do anybody any good if nobody ever learns from these experiments. > > let's hope someone catches on quickly... > > -bowerbird > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Mon Oct 18 09:52:19 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:52:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: quarterly report on fadedpage, through september 2010 Message-ID: <4024a.317c8168.39edd543@aol.com> keith said: > It is good to see Rogers site is making good headway. it _has_ made "good headway" in many important ways, yes. in other important ways, it has failed to attract critical mass. more importantly, one must consider "the recent developments". > It also, seems to be very productive considering its base size. i'm not quite so sure. they've digitized 37 books as of today... that means about one book per week since the start of the year. if they have a half-dozen people doing it, that's not impressive. it's nice, but not impressive. of course, without knowing exactly how much time those volunteers have put in, it's impossible to gauge their productivity. it's comforting to know the _system_ hasn't wasted their time, like over at distributed proofreaders, so i have no reason to question their productivity, given that they haven't attracted critical mass. but 37 books is 37 books... still, in terms of an _experiment_, it's been a _huge_ success... they've tested a number of things, and most of 'em worked well. > As the site is actively producing texts I think > a mention on the PG Homepage would be nice.? > > BB it is Rogers site and as you say the proof is the puddin' ;-) yes, but you need to consider "the recent developments"... > I do not it is fair to Roger to say he does not trust his base. > I look at as "quality control".? well then, you haven't familiarized yourself with the situation... so you don't know what you're talking about. so why talk at all? > Even one of the biggest collaborative efforts on the web > Wikipedia has "Masters" that make final decisions. > So that idea can not be all that bad.? that's not what's happening. know what you're talking about... because i spend a lot of time and energy to make sure that i do. *** the "recent developments" are that roger has decided to pull back. he has posted notice of this, both at fadedpage and over at d.p. i'm not sure _exactly_ what he means, so i can't really picture what the future of fadedpage will be. roger himself might not know yet. but it's clear that the failure to attract a good number of volunteers was disappointing to him. likewise with his failure to have _any_ of his findings about successful innovations picked up by the d.p. site. roger was also bothered by the inability of his basement computer to keep up, even with the tiny demands of his small base of users, and with the administrative time it took him to deal with that side. i really think that p.g. -- either via greg or via biblio -- should offer some hardware resources to roger, and funnel volunteers to him... what he has been doing is something important to the future of p.g. but i honestly don't know if roger's interested in that, at this late date. *** like many people, including some users who used to volunteer a lot of their time on the site, i've given up on distributed proofreaders... but i think this whole scenario bodes _very_ badly for their future. it's understandable when they dismiss a constant critic like myself... perhaps a _ban_ was going overboard, but they were very desperate. yet they have also _consistently_ dissed don kretz. yes, he has been a frequent critic, but he is also a volunteer who gives _lots_ of time. and when he does criticize, he contributes _code_ for improvement, which is continually _ignored_ by those who _could_ implement it... which only goes to show that the assholes there tolerate no dissent. but roger frank? roger is one of their _darlings_. he's one of those dale-carnegie types who only allows himself to say positive things. he was a constant cheerleader for d.p., and is very popular there... indeed, he was voted to the board of directors in their first election. but still, d.p. put the cone of silence on the fadedpage experiment. and, as far as i know, they haven't expressed even a slight interest in picking up _any_ of the successful innovations from fadedpage. it's as if the people running d.p. are _immune_ to improvements... which means they're slowly but surely running d.p. into the ground. it's sad. it's really sad. *** so i strongly suggest that d.p. reach out to roger frank right now. give the man what he needs -- or at least _offer_ to give it to him. might be the only remaining chance that p.g. has for a bright future. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From klofstrom at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 10:14:46 2010 From: klofstrom at gmail.com (Karen Lofstrom) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 07:14:46 -1000 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: > Michael S. Hart wrote: > Why make it harder than it has to be? > Why reinvent the wheel yet again? > A simple search for even just three short words ... Because you can't put "search for XXX" as a scholarly citation. Pagination has been the old scholarly default, but it doesn't work if there is more than one edition of the book. I should have expected that a community such as this, which contains no scholars and is often hostile to them (or should I be saying us? I'm an independent scholar, if not an academic), wouldn't understand. Part of the solution has to be ebook readers and software that make displaying scholarly apparatus, such as footnotes and sidenotes, endnotes and references, as well as the suggested chapter and verse numbers, easy to do. Also making annotations, inserting notes, making links. We'll get there eventually. -- Karen Lofstrom From marcello at perathoner.de Mon Oct 18 10:48:37 2010 From: marcello at perathoner.de (Marcello Perathoner) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 19:48:37 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: <4CBC8875.50001@perathoner.de> Karen Lofstrom wrote: > I should have expected that a community such as this, which contains > no scholars and is often hostile to them (or should I be saying us? > I'm an independent scholar, if not an academic), wouldn't understand. I'm not hostile at all, but I have 2 objections: 1. The number of scholars using PG texts is epsilon. Scholars don't use texts digitized by somebody they don't trust. They digitize themselves or use facsimiles. 2. You should approach the relevant standard bodies, ie. IDPF and DAISY, and software companies, ie. Adobe and Apple, not PG. FYI PG does include page number entries in the EPUB TOCs it generates. The ebook readers just don't use them yet. > Part of the solution has to be ebook readers and software that make > displaying scholarly apparatus, such as footnotes and sidenotes, > endnotes and references, as well as the suggested chapter and verse > numbers, easy to do. Also making annotations, inserting notes, making > links. If you get me a (substantial) funding I can hack FBReader into doing this. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster at gutenberg.org From klofstrom at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 11:06:14 2010 From: klofstrom at gmail.com (Karen Lofstrom) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:06:14 -1000 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: <4CBC8875.50001@perathoner.de> References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> <4CBC8875.50001@perathoner.de> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 7:48 AM, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > 1. The number of scholars using PG texts is epsilon. Scholars don't use texts digitized by somebody they don't trust. They digitize themselves or use facsimiles. Another one of those ebook chicken-and-egg problems. In the past it was: people won't buy ebook readers because there's nothing to read on them; publishers won't publish in e because there's no convenient way to read the books. I believe that DP and PG had a great deal to do with breaking this impasse, by making many thousands of books available FREE ... which is always a selling point. Now the impasse is that scholars won't use ebooks because the books don't fit their needs, and we won't tune the books to their needs because no scholars use ebooks. We will get past this one too. As for scholarly digitisation efforts ... they're often useless for course work because the instititutions try to PREVENT easy access. You can only read the books on their website, and can't easily download. Nasty grasping behavior. Eventually the scholars will realize that DP's later efforts, with pagination and specification of the edition from which the scans were taken, are trustworthy. -- Karen Lofstrom From traverso at posso.dm.unipi.it Mon Oct 18 11:21:47 2010 From: traverso at posso.dm.unipi.it (Carlo Traverso) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 20:21:47 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: (message from Karen Lofstrom on Mon, 18 Oct 2010 07:14:46 -1000) References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: <20101018182147.348BF101E9@cardano.dm.unipi.it> The most important point however is that you cannot change how books are quoted in existing books since hundreds of years. Assume that you have a book A printed, say, in 1922, that quotes a standard edition of a book B in the standard way, with a page number. Assume that you have an e-copy of B and you are reading A. How can you find the reference unless you have kept page numbers in B? Carlo From grythumn at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 11:23:12 2010 From: grythumn at gmail.com (Robert Cicconetti) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:23:12 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Karen Lofstrom wrote: > > Michael S. Hart wrote: > > > Why make it harder than it has to be? > > Why reinvent the wheel yet again? > > A simple search for even just three short words ... > > Because you can't put "search for XXX" as a scholarly citation. > Pagination has been the old scholarly default, but it doesn't work if > there is more than one edition of the book. > > I should have expected that a community such as this, which contains > no scholars and is often hostile to them (or should I be saying us? > I'm an independent scholar, if not an academic), wouldn't understand. > > Part of the solution has to be ebook readers and software that make > displaying scholarly apparatus, such as footnotes and sidenotes, > endnotes and references, as well as the suggested chapter and verse > numbers, easy to do. Also making annotations, inserting notes, making > links. > > We'll get there eventually. > > The simplest way to do a cite would be along the lines of 'The book of so and so' by 'Mouse, Antony'. Retrieved from Project Gutenberg on 10 Oct 2020, etext #50000, HTML format, characters 45,123-45,293. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From klofstrom at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 11:31:39 2010 From: klofstrom at gmail.com (Karen Lofstrom) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:31:39 -1000 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: <20101018182147.348BF101E9@cardano.dm.unipi.it> References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> <20101018182147.348BF101E9@cardano.dm.unipi.it> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 8:21 AM, Carlo Traverso wrote: > The most important point however is that you cannot change how books > are quoted in existing books since hundreds of years. Assume that you > have a book A printed, say, in 1922, that quotes a standard edition of > a book B in the standard way, with a page number. Assume that you have an > e-copy of B and you are reading A. How can you find the reference > unless you have kept page numbers in B? Good point. Clearly we need to have both page numbers and chapter/verse notation, not displayed as a default (that would be distracting), but available to toggle on when needed. Though the "standard edition" may not exist for some of the books most often assigned in literature courses. If an instructor assigns _Moby Dick_, which must exist in dozens of editions, then which edition is to be considered standard? Are you going to force a student to buy the XXX edition if she has the YYY edition? If, writing a scholarly paper, you cite page numbers from YYY, they will not necessarily match the page numbers from XXX. Which is why canonical texts like the Bible and the Qur'an are given the chapter/verse treatment. -- Karen Lofstrom From prosfilaes at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 11:34:28 2010 From: prosfilaes at gmail.com (David Starner) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:34:28 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Robert Cicconetti wrote: > The simplest way to do a cite would be along the lines of 'The book of so > and so' by 'Mouse, Antony'. Retrieved from Project Gutenberg on 10 Oct 2020, > etext #50000, HTML format, characters 45,123-45,293. I neither know how to find those characters nor locate those characters. In fact, that's not even well-defined; is that a grapheme count, or a Unicode code-point count (which is not invariant under normalization)? What about multiple spaces that are merged as one? Publishers have historically frequently kept page numbers the same (not for scholars, but because it was cheaper to make a fix if you didn't have to reset anything other than that page), but anything we do is going to change the character count. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero. From marcello at perathoner.de Mon Oct 18 11:40:21 2010 From: marcello at perathoner.de (Marcello Perathoner) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 20:40:21 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> <20101018182147.348BF101E9@cardano.dm.unipi.it> Message-ID: <4CBC9495.9050908@perathoner.de> Karen Lofstrom wrote: > Though the "standard edition" may not exist for some of the books most > often assigned in literature courses. If an instructor assigns _Moby > Dick_, which must exist in dozens of editions, then which edition is > to be considered standard? Are you going to force a student to buy the > XXX edition if she has the YYY edition? If, writing a scholarly paper, > you cite page numbers from YYY, they will not necessarily match the > page numbers from XXX. In TEI you can milestone any number of editions you like. You can also mark up alternative text versions. You can thus produce multiple editions with correct page numbering out of one TEI master. Just a small matter of programming. > Which is why canonical texts like the Bible and the Qur'an are given > the chapter/verse treatment. The smart thing would have been to give every text this treatment. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster at gutenberg.org From prosfilaes at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 11:56:27 2010 From: prosfilaes at gmail.com (David Starner) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:56:27 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: <4CBC9495.9050908@perathoner.de> References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> <20101018182147.348BF101E9@cardano.dm.unipi.it> <4CBC9495.9050908@perathoner.de> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > Karen Lofstrom wrote: >> Which is why canonical texts like the Bible and the Qur'an are given >> the chapter/verse treatment. > > The smart thing would have been to give every text this treatment. Yes, I'm sure that when they published those lesbian bondage novels in the late 50s, they should have anticipated that they would be used in college courses in the 80s, and put in chapters and verses. "87. And Jenny brought down her whip upon Kari's back. 88. And again. 89. And again." It really is distracting in straight reading and give a feel that many readers don't like; there will always be editions of Frankenstein and Dracula without obvious verses so long as people actually read them for fun. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero. From grythumn at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 12:01:31 2010 From: grythumn at gmail.com (Robert Cicconetti) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:01:31 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 2:34 PM, David Starner wrote: > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Robert Cicconetti > wrote: > > The simplest way to do a cite would be along the lines of 'The book of so > > and so' by 'Mouse, Antony'. Retrieved from Project Gutenberg on 10 Oct > 2020, > > etext #50000, HTML format, characters 45,123-45,293. > > I neither know how to find those characters nor locate those > characters. In fact, that's not even well-defined; is that a grapheme > count, or a Unicode code-point count (which is not invariant under > normalization)? What about multiple spaces that are merged as one? > Publishers have historically frequently kept page numbers the same > (not for scholars, but because it was cheaper to make a fix if you > didn't have to reset anything other than that page), but anything we > do is going to change the character count. > > Shrug. Then a byte offset, with the full version (charset, encoding, etc) specified. This'll be off if someone converts between unicode or other charset, or if they change line endings, but if you stick to the official version d/led from PG on a specific date, it'll be consistent. R C -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nicestep at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 12:06:44 2010 From: nicestep at gmail.com (James Simmons) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:06:44 -0500 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage Message-ID: If scholars need e-books with standard page numbers they can always use PDFs and DjVus from the Internet Archive. Anything in PG is likely to be there too. This discussion reminds me of an article in Wired magazine many years ago. Decisions by U.S. courts are in the public domain. There was a publisher that printed these up as reference books. Someone tried to make a database of this information, and included pages numbers from the printed books as part of the data because judges needed that information. The book publisher sued on the grounds that the page numbers were copyrighted, even if none of the actual content of the books could be. This is how I remember it, anyway. James Simmons From schultzk at uni-trier.de Mon Oct 18 12:12:11 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:12:11 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: <07BA4940-441A-4CE3-9102-35185B02E113@uni-trier.de> Hi Karen, Am 18.10.2010 um 19:14 schrieb Karen Lofstrom: >> Michael S. Hart wrote: > >> Why make it harder than it has to be? >> Why reinvent the wheel yet again? >> A simple search for even just three short words ... > > Because you can't put "search for XXX" as a scholarly citation. True enough it is not a citation, but a away of finding the passage. > Pagination has been the old scholarly default, but it doesn't work if > there is more than one edition of the book. Since when is pagination the default. I do not think that Shakespeare folios have pages or even earlier texts. One does not quote Chaucer by pages, nor ancient roman philosophers, nor drama, nor is the Bible. Besides how many Bibles and editions are there. > > I should have expected that a community such as this, which contains > no scholars and is often hostile to them (or should I be saying us? > I'm an independent scholar, if not an academic), wouldn't understand. > > Part of the solution has to be ebook readers and software that make > displaying scholarly apparatus, such as footnotes and sidenotes, > endnotes and references, as well as the suggested chapter and verse > numbers, easy to do. Also making annotations, inserting notes, making > links. > > We'll get there eventually. > There are rules for citing webpages and editions. Having different ebook edition is not hard to cite. For a decent cite one mentions the edition, chapter and paragraph would be enough and is adequate. As far a scholarly citation is concerned a good scholar will only cite the original text and since there are not that many texts purely published as a e-text, a proper nomenclature has not been developed, yet. When the need arises I am sure a standardization for quoting ebooks will show up. regards Keith. From Bowerbird at aol.com Mon Oct 18 12:18:13 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:18:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage Message-ID: carlo said: > The most important point however is that > you cannot change how books are quoted > in existing books since hundreds of years. bingo. not to mention that the idea is flawed at the outset. there are just too many complications for it to work. which you quickly discover if you try to make it work. the only people who espouse this idea are those who have never actually made any efforts to make it work. the only way you can make it work is to constrain it, and once you constrain it, you cannot get the buy-in on the wholesale scale that you need to make it work. and even if you could, it would cost literally _millions_ of dollars to go back and do retrofitting, as carlo notes here, so all this ding-ding-dinging in my spam folder is just a bunch of people making a lot of noise about zilch. and i don't even have to read the spam for me to know it. and if you're not in my spam folder, and you say i'm wrong, let's hear your argument. i haven't smashed anything lately; i need the exercise... it won't work. there's nothing you can do to make it work. in the meantime, remember that the measly 30,000 books from project gutenberg pale in comparison when stacked next to the millions and millions and millions of books at google, and google doesn't have any problem at all when it comes to pointing to a particular page, thankyouverymuch... > http://books.google.com/books?id=w1kJAAAAQAAJ& dq=%22or%20not%20to%20be%22%20inauthor%3Ashakespeare&pg=RA3-PA44-IA1&ci=77%2C677%2C585%2C120& source=bookclip -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schultzk at uni-trier.de Mon Oct 18 12:20:35 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:20:35 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: quarterly report on fadedpage, through september 2010 In-Reply-To: <4024a.317c8168.39edd543@aol.com> References: <4024a.317c8168.39edd543@aol.com> Message-ID: <3F7D8559-802A-4E6A-90A0-347057D88261@uni-trier.de> Am 18.10.2010 um 18:52 schrieb Bowerbird at aol.com: > keith said: > > It is good to see Rogers site is making good headway. > > it _has_ made "good headway" in many important ways, yes. > in other important ways, it has failed to attract critical mass. > > more importantly, one must consider "the recent developments". > > [snip, snip] > > > Even one of the biggest collaborative efforts on the web > > Wikipedia has "Masters" that make final decisions. > > So that idea can not be all that bad. > > that's not what's happening. know what you're talking about... > because i spend a lot of time and energy to make sure that i do. Well, I was taking your description for granted, I will admit that. [snip, snip] > the "recent developments" are that roger has decided to pull back. > > he has posted notice of this, both at fadedpage and over at d.p. No mention on his HP, I am not in the forums. regards Keith. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From klofstrom at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 12:35:33 2010 From: klofstrom at gmail.com (Karen Lofstrom) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:35:33 -1000 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> <20101018182147.348BF101E9@cardano.dm.unipi.it> <4CBC9495.9050908@perathoner.de> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 8:56 AM, David Starner wrote: > It really is distracting in straight reading and give a feel that many readers don't like ... Which is why I'm suggesting that the software should allow you to toggle the display on and off. 99% of the time you'd want it off, but if you're citing a passage or looking up a reference, you'd turn it on. For those specific needs, the display would be necessary. -- Karen Lofstrom From hart at pglaf.org Mon Oct 18 13:01:36 2010 From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael S. Hart) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:01:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: On Mon, 18 Oct 2010, Karen Lofstrom wrote: > > Michael S. Hart wrote: > > > Why make it harder than it has to be? > > Why reinvent the wheel yet again? > > A simple search for even just three short words ... > > Because you can't put "search for XXX" as a scholarly citation. > Pagination has been the old scholarly default, but it doesn't work if > there is more than one edition of the book. > > I should have expected that a community such as this, which contains > no scholars and is often hostile to them (or should I be saying us? > I'm an independent scholar, if not an academic), wouldn't understand. > > Part of the solution has to be ebook readers and software that make > displaying scholarly apparatus, such as footnotes and sidenotes, > endnotes and references, as well as the suggested chapter and verse > numbers, easy to do. Also making annotations, inserting notes, making > links. > > We'll get there eventually. > > -- > Karen Lofstrom We should be writing for "Everyman" not for every scholar. Michael From klofstrom at gmail.com Mon Oct 18 13:14:49 2010 From: klofstrom at gmail.com (Karen Lofstrom) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:14:49 -1000 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Michael S. Hart wrote: > We should be writing for "Everyman" not for every scholar. "Everyman" will never read most of what DP has proofed. I'm currently proofing a translation of the Kashf-el-Mahjub, a Persian Sufi treatise, and Durkheim's _Elementary Forms of the Religious Life_. They will be useful to someone -- perhaps, in the case of the Durkheim, to generations of students. But not to Everyman. Everyman is reading _The Da Vinci Code_. -- Karen Lofstrom From hart at pglaf.org Mon Oct 18 13:32:47 2010 From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael S. Hart) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:32:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: I have higher aspirations for Everyman, or I never would have started all this. I see literacy and education advancing now as much as after Gutenberg's Press. If we build it, they will come. . . . Michael On Mon, 18 Oct 2010, Karen Lofstrom wrote: > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Michael S. Hart wrote: > > > We should be writing for "Everyman" not for every scholar. > > "Everyman" will never read most of what DP has proofed. I'm currently > proofing a translation of the Kashf-el-Mahjub, a Persian Sufi > treatise, and Durkheim's _Elementary Forms of the Religious Life_. > They will be useful to someone -- perhaps, in the case of the > Durkheim, to generations of students. But not to Everyman. > > Everyman is reading _The Da Vinci Code_. > > -- > Karen Lofstrom > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > From Bowerbird at aol.com Mon Oct 18 13:58:32 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:58:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: quarterly report on fadedpage, through september 2010 Message-ID: keith said: > Well, I was taking your description for granted, I will admit that. not really. i said roger expected the postprocessor to do all of the work. you were the one who misinterpreted this as "quality control". quality-control is done _after_ the last person does the work. when the postprocessor does all the work, there's no one left to do any quality-control. so that's one of the main problems. (the other main problem is that stripping the first-line workers of the ability to finalize the page means you disempower them. "match the scan" sounds all friendly and tolerant, but -- in the long run -- it robs the proofers of a sense of accomplishment. what it boils down to is that roger solved the wrong problem... instead of "relieving proofers" of the risk of "making an error", he should have given them the reward of _finishing_the_page_.) > No mention on his HP, I am not in the forums. you can find roger's post here: > http://www.pgdp.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=711089#711089 note that the thread continues on for a few pages... and that continuation is exactly what a knowledgeable observer would have predicted, both for what is said and what is missing. (the part that's "missing" is an absence of commentary from the asses behind the scenes who obstruct any progress over there.) -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schultzk at uni-trier.de Mon Oct 18 14:04:55 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 23:04:55 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: <0C43D6A5-B320-45D7-B4B8-2E392CB3E05A@uni-trier.de> Am 18.10.2010 um 22:14 schrieb Karen Lofstrom: > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Michael S. Hart wrote: > >> We should be writing for "Everyman" not for every scholar. > > "Everyman" will never read most of what DP has proofed. I'm currently > proofing a translation of the Kashf-el-Mahjub, a Persian Sufi > treatise, and Durkheim's _Elementary Forms of the Religious Life_. > They will be useful to someone -- perhaps, in the case of the > Durkheim, to generations of students. But not to Everyman. As I have mentioned before not citing the original can be dangerous. But, then again who says the original will not appear as a ebook. On the other hand unless you are analyzing Durkheim's work directly a comment of where you are taking the idea from would be sufficient and page numbers are not needed. regards Keith From schultzk at uni-trier.de Mon Oct 18 14:23:30 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 23:23:30 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: quarterly report on fadedpage, through september 2010 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70D13496-FC4A-4DC4-A3F4-59238B613648@uni-trier.de> Am 18.10.2010 um 22:58 schrieb Bowerbird at aol.com: > keith said: > > Well, I was taking your description for granted, I will admit that. > > not really. > > i said roger expected the postprocessor to do all of the work. > you were the one who misinterpreted this as "quality control". To put it in your style of comment is "Eat your own words" From your original post : Cite begin oh yeah, there's one more thing that bugs me about fadedpage, which is that roger's answer, for may things the volunteers ask, is "don't worry about that, the post-processor will take care of it"... so, on the one hand, he's built a system that empowers volunteers -- by giving them the power to take a page from o.c.r. to "final" -- but then, on the other hand, rips the new empowerment from them by constantly reminding them that _someone_else_ will be making the _real_ decisions _after_ their work is done. it's a sad irony, it is. Cite end > quality-control is done _after_ the last person does the work. > when the postprocessor does all the work, there's no one left > to do any quality-control. so that's one of the main problems. Like I said, I see some of the decisions that the post-proccessor does as quality control. Take it or leave it. > > (the other main problem is that stripping the first-line workers > of the ability to finalize the page means you disempower them. > "match the scan" sounds all friendly and tolerant, but -- in the > long run -- it robs the proofers of a sense of accomplishment. > what it boils down to is that roger solved the wrong problem... > instead of "relieving proofers" of the risk of "making an error", > he should have given them the reward of _finishing_the_page_.) Some what off topic, but it might give you an idea what I am at. When a car comes off an assembly line who finalizes it. The quality control inspector (aka postprocessor) not the line workers! regards Keith -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Tue Oct 19 00:22:20 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 03:22:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] 7.5 million ipads sold thus far Message-ID: <55f2.2de7b6ad.39eea12c@aol.com> apple's earnings in the most recent quarter are off the chart. iphone, ipod, and ipad... apple has sold _7.5_million_ ipads to date... still no announcement from amazon about how many kindles they have sold thus far... best of luck to both companies in the upcoming holiday buying frenzies... -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jimad at msn.com Tue Oct 19 14:32:31 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (Jim Adcock) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:32:31 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: What texts need for scholarly usage In-Reply-To: References: <62818899-A1C4-4D53-943A-620D49206345@uni-trier.de> Message-ID: >Part of the solution has to be ebook readers.... Which do not currently have support nor conventions for page number references. Some PG books "fake it" but the results usually end up difficult to implement (in my experience) and intrusive in practice when reading. It would be nice if ebook readers supported page number refs -- and ways to turn the display of page number refs on and off -- but currently they don't. From jimad at msn.com Tue Oct 19 15:22:08 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (Jim Adcock) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:22:08 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: 7.5 million ipads sold thus far In-Reply-To: <55f2.2de7b6ad.39eea12c@aol.com> References: <55f2.2de7b6ad.39eea12c@aol.com> Message-ID: Amazon claims that it holds about 70-80% of the total ebook market. And that 80% of those ebook sales go to people who own Kindles. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/03/amazon-we-have-70-80-perc_n_668971. html Amazon reports that 1st half 2010 ebook sales at 3X 2009 1st half ebook sales, so it doesn't seem like iPad has slowed down Kindle ebook sales too much. Does the average iPad owner actually buy books? I asked a buddy who is an Apple fan and an iPad user and he says "no." He uses his iPad as an interface to his tunes, photographs and his recipe collection. Not saying that's a bad thing, just that iPads get used for a lot of things, whereas when someone buys a Kindle you can be assured they're reading books on it! Barclays estimates Amazon is selling 5 million Kindles a year, with Kindle revenue at $1.7 billion this year and to grow to $4.3 billion in 2012. That would put Kindle ebook sales at about 80 million books a year. Rumor has it to look for ereaders on sale for less than $100 prior to Xmas, which would be cool. Not saying necessarily Kindles, maybe it will be nooks getting dumped for loss, since B&N is struggling. CNET Quote: CNET: Well, Apple's saying it's got 20 percent market share and I've heard Barnes & Noble saying it's got 20 percent as well, so that would leave you guys with... Freed (Amazon VP): Honestly, something doesn't add up because we're pretty sure we're 70 to 80 percent of the market. So, something, somewhere isn't quite working right. End-Quote. I'm personally pretty happy with the new $139 Kindle wifi version -- much more reliable transmission than previous Kindles and works very well with www.gutenberg.org -- allows you to directly download MOBI-format PG books from the PG website to your Kindle without restrictions. Also allows me to transfer books I am working on from an internal webserver to the Kindle without hooking up a USB cable. It would be cool if someone were to also offer an epub-based wifi ebook reader that would similarly allow download directly from PG without restriction. From Bowerbird at aol.com Wed Oct 20 00:27:55 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 03:27:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: 7.5 million ipads sold thus far Message-ID: <4836d.414e7b2f.39eff3fb@aol.com> jim said: > it doesn't seem like iPad has slowed > down Kindle ebook sales too much.? who would have ever thought that anyway? *** i reported on the number of ipads sold versus the number of kindles sold (not kindle-books) because michael hart and i have a friendly bet on the relative number of units moved of each. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcello at perathoner.de Wed Oct 20 11:33:15 2010 From: marcello at perathoner.de (Marcello Perathoner) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:33:15 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Twitter Message-ID: <4CBF35EB.1060206@perathoner.de> You may want to follow gutenberg_new on Twitter. It cackles about new ebooks posted at PG in real time. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster at gutenberg.org From Bowerbird at aol.com Mon Oct 25 11:19:14 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:19:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software Message-ID: <189e21.7725f095.39f72421@aol.com> barnes&noble is having a press conference tomorrow... so, in a friendly competitive nod, amazon did a press release today. > http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle& ID=1486648 without giving specific numbers -- this _is_ amazon, you know -- the announcement was that amazon has already sold more kindle _hardware_ units in the month of october than they moved in the _entire_ fourth quarter of last year, which is a staggering statistic, given that the holiday buying period hasn't even really begun yet... moreover -- again, without any specific numbers -- amazon noted that bestsellers are now selling in greater numbers _electronically_ than in _both_ paperback and hardcover form, _combined_, and that the rate is 2-to-1. again, a staggering and mind-blowing statistic... the hardware sales leap is understandable. given the new low price of the machine, with their proven performance in the marketplace, it's not surprising that amazon would be moving so many units now. they're also reaping the rewards of a high-profile advertising thrust. and given the nice bump in hardware units, perhaps some rise in the sales of kindle-books could be expected, in corresponding fashion... but 2-to-1, against paperback and hardcover _combined!_ killer! a while back, amazon announced that k-books surpassed hardcover. but given that hardcovers run $15-$20, even with amazon discounts, while some k-books weigh in at just $2.99, numbers didn't tell it all. but this is a straight-up comparison of _bestsellers_, which weight heavily toward the corporate publishers, most especially the big6... and 5 of those big6 are charging _agency_ prices for their k-books, a fact which makes this announcement even _more_ darn amazing... what this says -- and the corporate publishers can verify this simply by looking at their own results on their own books -- is that k-books (even at agency prices) are out-selling the paperbooks and hardcovers which the corporate publishers are putting out. their business model -- as per their history and their own mindsets -- is now _overturned_, at least on the flat playing-field that amazon provides them. stunning. how soon will it be before amazon is selling more k-books than the combined number of hardcovers and paperbooks sold by _everyone_? that's the question those corporate publishers must be wondering... -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From inka at 21torr.com Mon Oct 25 11:19:55 2010 From: inka at 21torr.com (inka at 21torr.com) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:19:55 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Auto: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software Message-ID: Vielen Dank fuer Ihre Nachricht. Ich bin vom 23. 10. bis zum 14. 11. 2010 im Urlaub und habe keinen Zugang zu meinen E-Mails. Wenden Sie sich daher in dringenden Faellen bitte an Astrid Stephan: a.stephan at 21torr.com Telefon 07121/3 48-243 From marcello at perathoner.de Mon Oct 25 12:53:21 2010 From: marcello at perathoner.de (Marcello Perathoner) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:53:21 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Amazon misinformation agan Message-ID: <4CC5E031.20901@perathoner.de> "For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of greater than 2 to 1." http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1486648&highlight= Their top 1 bestselling book is: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as snarfed from PG. Selling books is twice as hard as giving them away. Thanks, Amazon, for this big piece of insight. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster at gutenberg.org From marcdh at freeliterature.org Mon Oct 25 13:17:59 2010 From: marcdh at freeliterature.org (Marc D'Hooghe) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 22:17:59 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Amazon misinformation agan In-Reply-To: <4CC5E031.20901@perathoner.de> References: <4CC5E031.20901@perathoner.de> Message-ID: PG books on Amazon - another recent one: http://www.amazon.com/Oscar-Wilde-Morality-Defence-ebook/dp/B0042JTH2M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A36UWAQAV1U1MD&s=digital-text&qid=1288037653&sr=1-1 Stuart Mason - Oscar Wilde. Art and Morality, A Defence of the Picture of Dorian Gray. 2010/10/25 Marcello Perathoner > "For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing > Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of > greater than 2 to 1." > > > > http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1486648&highlight= > > > Their top 1 bestselling book is: > > The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes > > as snarfed from PG. > > > Selling books is twice as hard as giving them away. Thanks, Amazon, for > this big piece of insight. > > > > -- > Marcello Perathoner > webmaster at gutenberg.org > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > -- Marc Freeliterature.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jimad at msn.com Mon Oct 25 13:30:41 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (Jim Adcock) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:30:41 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Amazon states that ebook sales exceeding print book sales "across the board" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://tinyurl.com/325n9mp From Bowerbird at aol.com Mon Oct 25 15:34:15 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:34:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software Message-ID: <19b6d6.685068c7.39f75fe7@aol.com> any time amazon does a press-release, the crackpots come out and try to throw rocks. it's become an amusing thing to watch. the fact of that matter is that those press-releases are fraught with legalistic landmines. look at the "forward-look statements" fine print included at the bottom, which is required by the s.e.c. i'm quite sure they think about what they say, and spin it in a way that makes it sound as good as they can, but i'm also sure it's true. because the cost of saying something false -- even technically so -- is just too damn high. it just might get you sued, class-action wise. and, as jim points out, amazon says that e-books are kicking ass _across_the_board_. and that sounds rather unambiguous to me. further, if amazon was saying something that was materially untrue, don't you think the publishers would call them on it? i'm sure of it. after all, the publishers know the actual numbers on all these claims. and they're actively looking for a way to take amazon down a notch... yet none of them are disputing what amazon says. indeed, when the last press-release was issued, publishers confirmed that it was true... *** oh, and yes, some books from p.g. are being sold (or given away) on amazon. we have discussed this before. and if p.g. wanted to, p.g. could offer those books _itself_ and knock out the knock-offs. but nobody here has stepped up to do that. y'all just wanna bitch. and until you get up off your asses and _do_something_, nothing will change. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jimad at msn.com Mon Oct 25 15:36:05 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (James Adcock) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:36:05 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Borders Books selling eReaders under $100 Message-ID: As web pundits have been predicting, Borders is now selling eReaders under $100. This is for the older "USB and Bluetooth" KOBO reader, the newer model with wifi is $139. Good price if you want an ePub device with the Adobe DRM which may allow you to download ebooks from your local library using Overdrive - not to mention read ePubs from PG (But you will have to download them via your computer and USB cable, or if you have a Blackberry then by wifi.) http://www.borders.com/online/store/MediaView_ereaders Video review by ZDNet: http://tinyurl.com/24lxnro -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Mon Oct 25 15:50:41 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:50:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Borders Books selling eReaders under $100 Message-ID: <19c542.5fee3485.39f763c1@aol.com> well, yeah, but geez, people, don't buy yesterday's tech for something that you're gonna wanna use tommorow. there's a reason it's cheap. they're unloading the stuff... -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Mon Oct 25 15:54:41 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:54:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Borders Books selling eReaders under $100 Message-ID: <19c8b9.62536e39.39f764b1@aol.com> i said: > tommorow holy crap. how did my spell-checker get turned off? i apologize for subjecting you to an unnecessary typo. i assure you the situation has been corrected. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jimad at msn.com Mon Oct 25 16:04:40 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (James Adcock) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:04:40 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software In-Reply-To: <19b6d6.685068c7.39f75fe7@aol.com> References: <19b6d6.685068c7.39f75fe7@aol.com> Message-ID: >oh, and yes, some books from p.g. are being sold (or given away) >on amazon. we have discussed this before. and if p.g. wanted to, >p.g. could offer those books _itself_ and knock out the knock-offs. >but nobody here has stepped up to do that. y'all just wanna bitch. >and until you get up off your asses and _do_something_, nothing >will change. Some years ago I looked at this possibility but decided against wanting to work a mosh-up between Amazon's legalese and PG's legalese. Not saying that it can't be don't, shouldn't be done, or hasn't been done - search Amazon ebooks for "Project Gutenberg" What I decided to do instead was to set up my own website to support Kindles - since at that time PG refused to support Kindles. That site is freekindlebooks.org , and is still doing about 150,000 free downloads a month, in spite of actively trying to pass users back to PG now that PG offers reasonable support of Kindles. Also not counting all the people downloading books using "Magic Catalog." So, its not that "nobody did it." Its just that nobody did it exactly like you suggest it could done. I would think most PG volunteers, including yours truly, are actually not very interested in helping along the Amazon's DRM restrictions and Amazon's DRM restrictions website - even if we *are* fans of the Kindle reader hardware itself. Personally I am willing to buy books in copyright with DRM. Not willing to help support DRM on out-of-copyright books. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hart at pglaf.org Mon Oct 25 16:05:17 2010 From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael S. Hart) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:05:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software In-Reply-To: <19b6d6.685068c7.39f75fe7@aol.com> References: <19b6d6.685068c7.39f75fe7@aol.com> Message-ID: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall. . . ." Please, Mr. Bird, look in the mirror before you write this stuff. I can't count the times I have asked you to do something that was a simple execution of what you said you were doing already, but a response from you turned out in effect to just continue bitching, you use your own word. I have warned you privately, now I will warn you again in public, if you don't DO something in the way of actually constructing new or improved eBooks and send them directly to me, I will stop what I have been doing to to protect you from yet again being off list with nowhere here to send your comments. Is there really any content in the message below besides bitches? Please. . .after all this time some CONSTRUCTION. . .please. . .! Michael On Mon, 25 Oct 2010, Bowerbird at aol.com wrote: > any time amazon does a press-release, the crackpots come out > and try to throw rocks.? it's become an amusing thing to watch. > > the fact of that matter is that those press-releases are fraught > with legalistic landmines.? look at the "forward-look statements" > fine print included at the bottom, which is required by the s.e.c. > > i'm quite sure they think about what they say, and spin it in a way > that makes it sound as good as they can, but i'm also sure it's true. > because the cost of saying something false -- even technically so -- > is just too damn high.? it just might get you sued, class-action wise. > > and, as jim points out, amazon says that e-books are kicking ass > _across_the_board_.? and that sounds rather unambiguous to me. > > further, if amazon was saying something that was materially untrue, > don't you think the publishers would call them on it?? i'm sure of it. > after all, the publishers know the actual numbers on all these claims. > and they're actively looking for a way to take amazon down a notch... > > yet none of them are disputing what amazon says.? indeed, when the > last press-release was issued, publishers confirmed that it was true... > > *** > > oh, and yes, some books from p.g. are being sold (or given away) > on amazon.? we have discussed this before.? and if p.g. wanted to, > p.g. could offer those books _itself_ and knock out the knock-offs. > > but nobody here has stepped up to do that.? y'all just wanna bitch. > and until you get up off your asses and _do_something_, nothing > will change. > > -bowerbird > > From jimad at msn.com Mon Oct 25 16:10:46 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (James Adcock) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:10:46 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Borders Books selling eReaders under $100 In-Reply-To: <19c542.5fee3485.39f763c1@aol.com> References: <19c542.5fee3485.39f763c1@aol.com> Message-ID: > there's a reason it's cheap. they're unloading the stuff... Well yah, but it's a "book" - I don't always feel compelled to buy paper books with the newest cover on them either. Actually, I've run into a bunch of people who are interested in ebooks in order to *reduce* the price of their book buying habits. Student on a budget, for example. Also, I or other PG devs might get one just so we have an ePub based eReader as well as MOBI-based ones. But then I might be tempted to spend the extra $40 to get wifi, or the extra money to get a Sony Reader, or a Nook. .it shows the marketeers are getting their pricing right if one can't figure out what to buy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schultzk at uni-trier.de Tue Oct 26 00:04:22 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:04:22 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software In-Reply-To: <189e21.7725f095.39f72421@aol.com> References: <189e21.7725f095.39f72421@aol.com> Message-ID: Hi Everybody, While it might be interesting to learn how all the ereaders are coming along and how e-books are moving. But, all this is advertising and I personally do think it belongs here. Please, do not forget stats are stats and just when only percentages are mentioned you should know it is a snow job. Standard marketing practice. Nothing new to the informed reader. Now, whether Amazon, Apple, XYZ is making money off of PG editions is only important as far if PG is getting it due according to its license. I hope so at least. Now, if the big publishing houses finally stated that they will produce electronic version of the majority of their books published, that would be news. News, would be that if textbooks that are out of print and most likely never to be printed again, that these books can be digitalized and be distributed or at least checked out at a library. regards Keith. Am 25.10.2010 um 20:19 schrieb Bowerbird at aol.com: > barnes&noble is having a press conference tomorrow... > > so, in a friendly competitive nod, amazon did a press release today. > > > http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1486648 > > without giving specific numbers -- this _is_ amazon, you know -- > the announcement was that amazon has already sold more kindle > _hardware_ units in the month of october than they moved in the > _entire_ fourth quarter of last year, which is a staggering statistic, > given that the holiday buying period hasn't even really begun yet... > > moreover -- again, without any specific numbers -- amazon noted > that bestsellers are now selling in greater numbers _electronically_ > than in _both_ paperback and hardcover form, _combined_, and that > the rate is 2-to-1. again, a staggering and mind-blowing statistic... > > the hardware sales leap is understandable. given the new low price > of the machine, with their proven performance in the marketplace, > it's not surprising that amazon would be moving so many units now. > they're also reaping the rewards of a high-profile advertising thrust. > > and given the nice bump in hardware units, perhaps some rise in the > sales of kindle-books could be expected, in corresponding fashion... > > but 2-to-1, against paperback and hardcover _combined!_ killer! > > a while back, amazon announced that k-books surpassed hardcover. > but given that hardcovers run $15-$20, even with amazon discounts, > while some k-books weigh in at just $2.99, numbers didn't tell it all. > > but this is a straight-up comparison of _bestsellers_, which weight > heavily toward the corporate publishers, most especially the big6... > and 5 of those big6 are charging _agency_ prices for their k-books, > a fact which makes this announcement even _more_ darn amazing... > > what this says -- and the corporate publishers can verify this simply > by looking at their own results on their own books -- is that k-books > (even at agency prices) are out-selling the paperbooks and hardcovers > which the corporate publishers are putting out. their business model > -- as per their history and their own mindsets -- is now _overturned_, > at least on the flat playing-field that amazon provides them. stunning. > > how soon will it be before amazon is selling more k-books than the > combined number of hardcovers and paperbooks sold by _everyone_? > > that's the question those corporate publishers must be wondering... > > -bowerbird > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Tue Oct 26 00:19:41 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:19:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software Message-ID: <3b794.13c07ffe.39f7db0d@aol.com> jim, i know what you did to help people put p.g. on their kindles, and you did a fantastic job helping people pull off that job for themselves. that's not what i was talking about, though... i was talking about an effort by p.g. to establish the p.g. catalog throughout amazon. to create print-on-demand versions, kindle-books, the whole bag, all under the p.g. brand. but nobody wanted to do that. ok, fine... that meant that privateers out there took p.g. books and set 'em up. i'm fine with that too... at least the option is open to readers, right? but every once in a while here, someone moans about the privateers. so when they do, i remind them that they could have done it _first_, but actively chose not to do so, so maybe they should be quiet now. they ceded the ground to the privateers... so it was their own fault. so, do you see the difference, jim? you made it so kindle owners can get p.g. e-books from p.g., for free. that's a wonderful thing. but i was talking about an unrealized plan for amazon customers to get p.g. books (p-books and e-books) from _amazon_, at a cost, where p.g. would be the beneficiary of those customer purchases... (perhaps p.g. could have offered the e-books for free, but we never got to the stage of putting the plan in play, to make that decision.) so now privateers are benefiting from the work of p.g. volunteers... again, i'm fine with that, and everyone should be fine with it too, because they could have done things differently, but they didn't... -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Tue Oct 26 00:25:00 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:25:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software Message-ID: <3b8e0.4e0ee3fd.39f7dc4c@aol.com> michael said: > "Mirror, mirror, on the wall. . . ." > > Please, Mr. Bird, look in the mirror before you write this stuff. > > I can't count the times I have asked you to do something > that was a simple execution of what you said you were doing > already, but a response from you turned out in effect to just > continue bitching, you use your own word. > > I have warned you privately, now I will warn you again in public, > if you don't DO something in the way of actually constructing > new or improved eBooks and send them directly to me, I will > stop what I have been doing to to protect you from yet again > being off list with nowhere here to send your comments. > > Is there really any content in the message below besides bitches? > > Please. . .after all this time some CONSTRUCTION. . .please. . .! michael, i don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about here. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Tue Oct 26 00:34:42 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:34:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Borders Books selling eReaders under $100 Message-ID: <3bb27.16153622.39f7de91@aol.com> jim said: > I don?t always feel compelled to buy paper books > with the newest cover on them either. jim, i'm sure you know that that's a very bad analogy. > Actually, I?ve run into a bunch of people who are > interested in ebooks in order to *reduce* the price of > their book buying habits.? Student on a budget, for example. that's still not a reason to buy outdated technology... ? > Also, I or other PG devs might get one just so we have > an ePub based eReader as well as MOBI-based ones. you imply that this "epub-based reader" will be just as good as any other one that happens along. it won't, i assure you... they are giving people a very clear signal that they are _not_ gonna support these models going forward. heed that signal. > But then I might be tempted to spend the extra $40 to > get wifi, or the extra money to get a Sony Reader, or a Nook? all of those decisions would be much smarter decisions, yes. > ?it shows the marketeers are getting their pricing right > if one can?t figure out what to buy. ? there is no question about "which one to buy" in this situation. do _not_ buy this outdated technology which they are dumping. spend the extra $40 or more to get a machine that you will use. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Tue Oct 26 00:47:27 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:47:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software Message-ID: <3be74.10dd90ea.39f7e18f@aol.com> keith said: > if the big publishing houses finally stated that they will produce > electronic version of the majority of their books published, > that would be news.? keith, you amuse me. the big publishing houses are the _dinosaurs_ in this revolution... if you think their actions -- in any way, shape, or form -- constitute "news" when it comes to e-books, you are badly and sadly mistaken. the news is that the dinosaurs are going down. look at the mammals. the mammals are the authors who have already learned that they can eliminate the middlemen publishers by uploading directly to amazon. if you want to listen in where the mammals hang out, try here: > http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ joe konrath discovered -- quite by accident -- that he can pay his mortgage by selling kindle-books, and he is spreading the word... -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schultzk at uni-trier.de Tue Oct 26 01:06:30 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 10:06:30 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: kindle continues to zoom, hardware and software In-Reply-To: <3be74.10dd90ea.39f7e18f@aol.com> References: <3be74.10dd90ea.39f7e18f@aol.com> Message-ID: HI BB, Good for Joe. But, always you do not get the point. The big publishing houses are to date still the motor of the book industry. Like dinosaurs they are getting there. Also, do not forget the evolutionary wise most successful are direct descendants of dinosaurs. More and more magazines and newspapers are becoming electronic. The music industry has gone the same way. In one respect you are right. it is either evolve or become extinct. regards Keith. Am 26.10.2010 um 09:47 schrieb Bowerbird at aol.com: > keith said: > > if the big publishing houses finally stated that they will produce > > electronic version of the majority of their books published, > > that would be news. > > keith, you amuse me. > > the big publishing houses are the _dinosaurs_ in this revolution... > > if you think their actions -- in any way, shape, or form -- constitute > "news" when it comes to e-books, you are badly and sadly mistaken. > > the news is that the dinosaurs are going down. look at the mammals. > > the mammals are the authors who have already learned that they can > eliminate the middlemen publishers by uploading directly to amazon. > > if you want to listen in where the mammals hang out, try here: > > http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ > > joe konrath discovered -- quite by accident -- that he can pay his > mortgage by selling kindle-books, and he is spreading the word... > > -bowerbird > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jimad at msn.com Wed Oct 27 10:42:09 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (Jim Adcock) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:42:09 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Nook Color In-Reply-To: References: <3be74.10dd90ea.39f7e18f@aol.com> Message-ID: B&N just came out with a color display ePub reader: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookcolor Display resolution is 170 dpi -- so at least B&N understands the importance of a hi-rez display for a comfortable reading experience. (iPhone4 is 326 dpi) About 2X the weight of a Kindle 3. From Bowerbird at aol.com Wed Oct 27 12:30:42 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:30:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Nook Color Message-ID: jim said: > B&N just came out with a color display ePub reader: well, they _announced_ it. they didn't let anyone actually _touch_ it, let alone _use_ it. and pageturns were described as "excruciating"... not good. their software has been truly laughable up to this point -- i have friends who work for a barnes&noble, and they are frustrated to the point of no return selling the buggy things -- so let's see if they have improved that before we applaud. the most interesting thing about this announcement is the degree to which it signals a turning away from e-ink. of course, nook might be a loser no matter _what_ it uses. (in fairness, though, david moynihan reports that he is getting good sales from barnes&noble; not as good as from amazon, but a lot closer than most other people.) -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jimad at msn.com Wed Oct 27 20:22:55 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (Jim Adcock) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:22:55 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Nook Color In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >the most interesting thing about this announcement is the degree to which it signals a turning away from e-ink. Don't know about any "turning away" from e-ink. The quality of the e-ink in the K3 is imho pretty amazing -- and presumably the other eBook readers will pick up this technology (Pearl) on their next releases too. Also e-ink devices should continue to be smaller and lighter because they are more energy efficient meaning smaller batteries. http://www.eink.com/products/High_Res_Pearl.html So, I'd think there will continue to be room in the eReader market for both technologies. They really are quite different, and many eReader owners are actually quite enamored with e-ink vs. lcd displays. Both had their advantages and disadvantages: http://tinyurl.com/36w2pk2 From Bowerbird at aol.com Thu Oct 28 01:35:06 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2010 04:35:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Nook Color Message-ID: <5a3e9.6929edc.39fa8fba@aol.com> all of the units in this space had e-ink before. now there is a break. that is a turning-away. i'm not saying the turn-away will be complete. there's some question whether it will even be successful. if this machine, and the color kobo which is rumored to be following quickly behind, don't perform in the marketplace, there will be a turning-back toward e-ink. or, if they do ok, then they might split the market from here out. or, if the e-ink people provide the color that they have promised would appear "in 5 years" for the last 10 years, e-ink might regain the high ground. (ok, i admit it, i was just yanking your chain to see if you really still believe all those vapor promises.) but, on a more serious note, we still have the screen that mary lou developed over at o.l.p.c. i sure wish that'd get out of the starting gate... screen tech is finally getting interesting, after too many years of overpromising and underdelivering. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hart at pglaf.org Sat Oct 30 20:39:00 2010 From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael S. Hart) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 20:39:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Away From The Net Message-ID: I will be hard to get the next few days, but keep trying. I'm not sure this computer will come back up when I try-- but I'll at least have my netbook, etc. Michael From hart at pglaf.org Sun Oct 31 03:04:44 2010 From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael S. Hart) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 03:04:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Borders Books selling eReaders under $100 (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Today I got an ad from Borders for eBooks under $1.00. This is definitely the year of the eBook!!! Michael On Mon, 25 Oct 2010, Michael S. Hart wrote: > > As web pundits have been predicting, Borders is now selling eReaders under $100.? This > is for the older ?USB and Bluetooth? KOBO reader, the newer model with wifi is $139.? > Good price if you want an ePub device with the Adobe DRM which may allow you to download > ebooks from your local library using Overdrive ? not to mention read ePubs from PG (But > you will have to download them via your computer and USB cable, or if you have a > Blackberry then by wifi.) > > ? > > http://www.borders.com/online/store/MediaView_ereaders > > ? > > Video review by ZDNet: > > ? > > http://tinyurl.com/24lxnro > > ? > >