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Tuesday, December 14, 2004
MORE QUALITY CONTENT FROM GOOGLE..
So Google is going to scan over 1,000,000 books, mostly out-of-print, from the libraries of Harvard, Oxford, and the New York Public Library, etc., and make them available online. I think this is going to be a simple, image scan thing, not a fully searchable, tagged, encoded, and whatever else-database, like the Whitman Archive, on which my brother-in-law works (which, by the way, is pretty awesome - Whitman sure tried hard! - check out the poems where virtually the entire poem has been crossed out and replaced, word by word - guess he didn't own pencils with erasers). But, how cool will it be to have all those ancient books right there, available to just about anyone, for free..?
I'm a Google fan.
-m
So Google is going to scan over 1,000,000 books, mostly out-of-print, from the libraries of Harvard, Oxford, and the New York Public Library, etc., and make them available online. I think this is going to be a simple, image scan thing, not a fully searchable, tagged, encoded, and whatever else-database, like the Whitman Archive, on which my brother-in-law works (which, by the way, is pretty awesome - Whitman sure tried hard! - check out the poems where virtually the entire poem has been crossed out and replaced, word by word - guess he didn't own pencils with erasers). But, how cool will it be to have all those ancient books right there, available to just about anyone, for free..?
I'm a Google fan.
-m
Comments:
I read 1.5 million initial books. Google is simply amazing. At a cost of $10 per book, and for it to be fully searchable like they claim, it will not be some static image deal. This will be OCR-stuff. I think they should ask for volunteers to help edit the texts. You know, like those programs that dole out portions of huge problems like breaking protein codes to thousands of computers running them as screen savers. (By the way, Google has mastered that as well, no more SETI, use Google's HELIX to solve real problems. Can't do it on a laptop, though, it makes the processor heat up and runs the fan all the time.
So, my plan would be to have a few pages sent to you, and when you are idle, you read through it for grammatical or spelling errors. Then you have it sent back and wait for your next problem set. One day you are reading 19th century poetry, the next, 1950s economics essays.
I have a cold, a slight one. I am trying my new remedy. A few shots of Jägermeister, to make me stupid, and then some Nyquil right before bed. Ahhh Jägermeister ... I am starting to get stupid. The funny thing is that I am drinking it out of a Pokémon glass.
Even though I am getting a little hammered, I am still remembering my accents and umlauts...
--gh
So, my plan would be to have a few pages sent to you, and when you are idle, you read through it for grammatical or spelling errors. Then you have it sent back and wait for your next problem set. One day you are reading 19th century poetry, the next, 1950s economics essays.
I have a cold, a slight one. I am trying my new remedy. A few shots of Jägermeister, to make me stupid, and then some Nyquil right before bed. Ahhh Jägermeister ... I am starting to get stupid. The funny thing is that I am drinking it out of a Pokémon glass.
Even though I am getting a little hammered, I am still remembering my accents and umlauts...
--gh
Well, I thought by "Searchable," they meant 'search for a book by this ancient dude...not...'search for an occasion where this dude said the word "scallywag" within 50 years of the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella..."
Dunno. Seems impossible. 1.5 million books. How many man hours is that? I made a complete copy of the book Jonathon Troy, by Edward Abbey, at the library (400 pages), and it took me about 2 hours.
Screensavers...You're talking about some kind of manual, Amish-ish SETI-at-home thing, I guess....yeah. Screensavers for office workers. Instead of just a blank stare while trying to get motivated for the next task, you could be editing literary databases, or perhaps even just performing an interpretive dance to Rammstein (for example).
I'll have to try your cold remedy. I usually load up on NyQuil, but I like the idea of augmenting it...I can't say as I've ever had Jagermeister. (I know!)
-m
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Dunno. Seems impossible. 1.5 million books. How many man hours is that? I made a complete copy of the book Jonathon Troy, by Edward Abbey, at the library (400 pages), and it took me about 2 hours.
Screensavers...You're talking about some kind of manual, Amish-ish SETI-at-home thing, I guess....yeah. Screensavers for office workers. Instead of just a blank stare while trying to get motivated for the next task, you could be editing literary databases, or perhaps even just performing an interpretive dance to Rammstein (for example).
I'll have to try your cold remedy. I usually load up on NyQuil, but I like the idea of augmenting it...I can't say as I've ever had Jagermeister. (I know!)
-m
