Standard eBooks Is a Gutenberg Project You’ll Actually Use

[barryem]

When I started college after having dropped out of high school 10 or 15 years earlier I was required to take a remedial course in both English and Math. I took both in summer when they didn't actually have an English teacher available so the linguistics teacher filled in. We went through the entire course material in about a week and spent the rest of the semester studying language in a rather disorganized way. He introduced a few topics to get us started asking questions and then we'd discuss the questions. It was one of the most interesting courses I've ever taken. I learned more and started reading in more new directions because of that course than probably from any learning experience in my life.

Barry

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Would/could these types of changes constitute a new grounds for copyright on these works since they are "edited"?

In theory, no.
In practice, maybe.

They can file for copyright protection. As far as asserting that right, and subsequent lawsuits for copyright infringement goes:
* If they attribute Project Gutenberg, they probably won't win the lawsuit;
* If they neither attribute nor acknowledge Project Gutenberg, they might win the lawsuit;

Either way, filing DMCA take-down notices, regardless of how fraudulent the notice is, has zero downside.

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

It makes me wonder are they actually college classes and how are these kids going to do when they get to the University level courses?

It might be useful to remember that in terms of both understanding the material, and the overall knowledge gained, a fifth grade education in 1915 is on a par with a BA (social studies) in 2015.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by barryem

When I started college after having dropped out of high school 10 or 15 years earlier I was required to take a remedial course in both English and Math. I took both in summer when they didn't actually have an English teacher available so the linguistics teacher filled in. We went through the entire course material in about a week and spent the rest of the semester studying language in a rather disorganized way. He introduced a few topics to get us started asking questions and then we'd discuss the questions. It was one of the most interesting courses I've ever taken. I learned more and started reading in more new directions because of that course than probably from any learning experience in my life.

Barry

I had to do Intro to College Algebra. It actually helped immensely in my next job. I didn't learn any math but I did learn some great teaching techniques. My next job was math tutor.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by maddz

Vulgar by whose standards?

You've got to remember that Latin has no word for homosexual sexual behaviour. The Romans just saw it as part of the normal sexual continuum. The main criterion was not to be thought effeminate by being the receptive partner.

I'll take your word for Martial; Aristophanes is bad (hem-hem) enough, especially Lysistrata.

I can remember whole sections of Satyricon being left in latin. For some strange reason, my high school Latin-English dictionary was of little help in translating those sections.

Interestingly, the translation of Anabasis that I read back in high school left out a few sections. I didn't realize that until I bought a more modern version several years ago, after reading Weber/Ringo's The March Upcountry and wanting to re-read the book. I ran across one particular section, though "wow, I don't remember that" and going back to my old high school book.

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by dwig

In this day of false news and deliberate attacks alter data on sites like Wikipedia I don't want books from sites that let random users alter the books. Sending suggested "fixes" to their editors is fine, but direct access to Git is a red flag for me.

To be fair to them, the main route for minor fixes appears to be as posts to their mailing list, while the Git route is via GitHub, which doesn't imply direct access to the project's Git repo.

That workflow would be to 'fork' it into your own personal Get repo, make the changes there then send the original project's maintainer a 'pull' request, inviting them to review and incorporate the changes they approve into the mainstream project - if someone were to be regularly providing high quality edits, they might give them direct access, but that's a different ball-game.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Apache

The basic English courses taught in college now are teaching the students things they should have learned in High School or earlier. I find it amazing that some schools have stopped teaching middle school students how to count change. It amazes me how many times I have had sales associates that are unable to count change back if something happens to the computer.
Apache

It must be my nasty nature, but I almost never give the exact amount (or close to) when they ask for it. Especially if I see how much trouble they have with counting change...


About this Standard eBooks, do they also carry different languages? I love reading English books in the original spelling, but I just cannot read Dutch books from before the '40s in the original spelling...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

About this Standard eBooks, do they also carry different languages? I love reading English books in the original spelling, but I just cannot read Dutch books from before the '40s in the original spelling...

By the look of it, just English at the moment.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

About this Standard eBooks, do they also carry different languages? I love reading English books in the original spelling, but I just cannot read Dutch books from before the '40s in the original spelling...

It looks like they produce USA English only, even to the point of having automated tools to convert logical punctuation to illogical punctuation.

But there is no restriction on cloning their infrastructure, so projects for other languages would not have to start from scratch.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Apache

The basic English courses taught in college now are teaching the students things they should have learned in High School or earlier. I find it amazing that some schools have stopped teaching middle school students how to count change. It amazes me how many times I have had sales associates that are unable to count change back if something happens to the computer.
Apache

In the worst case I've personally seen, I gave a cashier a $10 bill to pay for my daughter's Happy Meal and a coffee. He erroneously entered $100 on the cash register and handed me $95 in change -- it took a bit of arguing before he understood that I wasn't trying to say he had given me too little change and that I wanted him to take $90 back. The manager finally intervened to correct the issue. I could see a career in politics for that lad.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not to my personal taste; I prefer my books the way the author wrote them. I can, however, see the benefit to those for whom English is not a first language.

I've no inherent objections per se. Most editions of Jane Austen's works, for example, use modern spelling.

While I do agree with this, I'll also have to agree with ZodWallop, but for a different reason: many Gutenberg files have no markup or layout whatsoever. Often they're just EPUBified flat text files.

I'd rather pay for something such as the Delphi Classics, which are quite good, especially taking into account that they just cost €2-5 for an entire collection of an author's works.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

While I do agree with this, I'll also have to agree with ZodWallop, but for a different reason: many Gutenberg files have no markup or layout whatsoever. Often they're just EPUBified flat text files.

I'd rather pay for something such as the Delphi Classics, which are quite good, especially taking into account that they just cost €2-5 for an entire collection of an author's works.

Definitely agree. I don't mind paying someone else a few bucks to clean up a PD book for me.

[HarryT]

Delphi books have issues. Of particular annoyance is the fact that they don't hyperlink footnotes, which is a major problem for some books.

[Katsunami]

Compared to having no markup at all, the issues I've had with Delphi books (such as a link in a TOC pointing to the wrong place, or not actually being a link) are minor inconveniences. In time, they'd get fixed. (I reported a few of those myself.)

The only thing in the Delphi books I dislike are the useless, very small illustrations of things such as the first edition cover. They make the book bigger without reason. Either add a huge illustration that will also work on high-dpi screens, or add nothing.

[Tarana]

I'm in the please please please modernize the spellings boat. Works much better with my text-to-speech. It's alright for you who want the stuff in its original, but while some of the spellings work, many others just don't translate well. These vision issues of mine are really a downer.