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Not to mention, as others have pointed out, the matter that makes up 'you' changes constantly and is totally replaced every 7-10 years. You're literally not the same person you were 10 years ago.

I like Rudy Rucker's exploration of the metaphysics in Software, where characters argue that it's not the physical being that matters, it's the pattern that embodies 'you'.

And "potential existence is just as good as actual existence." :)

Now, it is true that Hollywood has never and likely will never make a faithful interpretation of any of his books

Maybe if they stuck with the juvenile works. I always thought Tunnel in the Sky and The Star Beast would make great movies - though they don't present lots of challenging ideas. Perhaps because of that very reason?

Now, it is true that Hollywood has never and likely will never make a faithful interpretation of any of his books

Maybe if they stuck with the juvenile works. I always thought Tunnel in the Sky and The Star Beast would make great movies - though they don't present lots of challenging ideas. Perhaps because of that very reason?

In a world where every book, every music recording, every movie, tv show, all media is readily available for free somewhere on the internet

We're not even close to that. I'm not sure you realize just how many books and movies and recordings exist.

Incidentally, if you want to help OpenLibrary reach their goal of "a page for every book," sign up and start entering ISBN's and other info for books they haven't got yet.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ... what with a new Blade Runner movie coming out in a few weeks.

It's not a long book. Next up: Ready Player One

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ... what with a new Blade Runner movie coming out in a few weeks.

It's not a long book. Next up: Ready Player One

Yes... a plethora of polymaths.

A pantheon of polymaths.
A plenitude of polymaths.
A profusion of polymaths!

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16248977W/The_Pleasure_of_Finding_Things_Out

Yet another documentary: https://openlibrary.org/works/...

More like Penultimate. https://openlibrary.org/works/...

I also think that the best way to preserve a book is to also to digitize it. The open library has a great idea for copyrighted books, they scan the books they own, the books is stored in a container and they share it online only one person at the time and can not be copied. If the person don't return the digital book, the system just check it in automatically after some days. Check http://www.openlibrary.org/ and Internet Archive.

Bruce Bethke wrote in Headcrash of an electrode device that lets you taste and smell in VR. Unfortunately, to connect to your spinal cord it has to be inserted rectally...

:-) Oh? Is that what his autobiography says? Okay, another stalemate. I don't feel like arguing

Nancy Reagan was born the same year the flow chart was first described in the literature. You can read the paper here.

Check if by any chance your books are already digitized on OpenLibrary.org

The Internet Archive Book Drive - https://openlibrary.org/bookdr...

Scanning Services - http://archive.org/scanning

It's simply easier to read the PDF although the file size is enormous and you're basically looking at images of some yellowing old book which means lots of panning and zooming particularly on small devices. And forget reading it on an e-reader.

So yeah I think you could automate scanning of books, but the second step of getting it into EPUB format is the tricky part.

Try OpenLibrary.

A side project of the Web Archive is OpenLibrary. I've checked out a number of old books there that I would never expect to find in any local library or bookstore!

care to provide one such link for a site will millions of (free) books available (other than project gutenberg) - preferrably with the possibility to for batch downloading the whole archive ? and no I don't mean a LMGTFY link

There are at least a dozen, (and NO, you don't get to dismiss Gutenberg out of hand).
Barnes and Nobel, Amazon, and Google all have scads of free titles. (You just have to know how to search).
https://openlibrary.org/ over a million titles.
There are several "lending" libraries that pool ebooks so you can borrow through OpenLibrary.org https://openlibrary.org/libraries (scroll down).

You don't have enough time in your remaining life to read the number of freely available ebooks that a simple web search will turn up.

care to provide one such link for a site will millions of (free) books available (other than project gutenberg) - preferrably with the possibility to for batch downloading the whole archive ? and no I don't mean a LMGTFY link

There are at least a dozen, (and NO, you don't get to dismiss Gutenberg out of hand).
Barnes and Nobel, Amazon, and Google all have scads of free titles. (You just have to know how to search).
https://openlibrary.org/ over a million titles.
There are several "lending" libraries that pool ebooks so you can borrow through OpenLibrary.org https://openlibrary.org/libraries (scroll down).

You don't have enough time in your remaining life to read the number of freely available ebooks that a simple web search will turn up.

Exactly. If the content is available digitally, they should put up a website like Open Library so people anywhere in the world can access it.

Italian physicist here...
Your claims about Berlusconi government are not correct. Unfortunately all the italian governments did their best to marginalize science and research, with the possible exception of those acting during the 1946-1975 interval, when there was the need to develop the italian nuclear industry. After the politicians had their nuclear toy, they threw it away a few years later, without worrying about the need of a new national research program to replace nuclear energy with something different. I got my degree in 1987, and I decided it was better to work for the industry.

Our country just celebrated the 150th anniversary, but I heard no words from a single politician recognizing the fact that one of the things that glued together the country from the very beginning was science. When our country was founded in 1961, it wasn't ever clear which official language to use, but scientists from different parts of Italy were closely working together from the very beginning. Draw your own conclusions...

Arrogance kills. That's hardly news. See http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15436462W/The_checklist_manifesto for discussion.

One of the reasons my wife got a nook was that (at the time - but you can use the kindle and other devices) was that you can borrow eBooks. Yes they expire after a time limit, but this type of stuff does keep the local library relevant, plus its already paid for by my taxes.
 
The library also publicizes these other sources of eBooks: Project Gutenburg, Open Library and the International Children's Digital Library

So... its basically Project Gutenberg with added DRM?

The books are quite a bit more recent, check William Gibson's available books:

http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL26283A/William_F._Gibson

An interesting book which talks about the internal supply issues the Soviet Union had:

Why They Behave Like Russians
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/whytheybehavelik00fiscmiss

As to the Great Depression, current thought by economics researchers (at least what I've read lately) is that FDR's "New Deal" Democrats and their policy of "spend your way to prosperity" actually *prolonged* the depression, and created the major roots of the issues we're suffering from today.

However, object oriented programming was very, very alien to me. There are some programming topics that can't be taught by learning assembly alone.

Huh? What are you talking about?

This reminds of a series of books Robert Glass published in the 1980s, that I read as a kid. It served as a fun way to learn a bit of computing history, and gain experiences in the reading RISKS digest (comp.risks) sense.

• The Universal Elixir and Other Computing Projects Which Failed (1977)
• Computing Catastrophes (1983)
• Computing Shakeout (1987)

They are fun, short reads, but learning from other's failures can save you time. :)

You forgot, "Don't be a great writer... be a grout writer!" (From Graffiti in the PAC Ten

Something similar was done almost 30 years ago.

Ah, very interesting, thank you.

As to the "austerity" fallacy, anyone who believes it needs to read Why They Behave Like Russians, which goes into considerable on-the-spot detail about the Soviet austerity program following WW2. The details differ but the principle is the same: gov't does whatever the hell it wants, takes everything we have, then tells us that *we* need to practice 'austerity' until the crisis passes. Trouble is, once you start down that road, the crisis never ends.

Why They Behave Like Russians -- out of copyright and free to read at the Open Library project:
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/whytheybehavelik00fiscmiss

(I have a battered old hardcopy of this book. One of the best quarters I ever spent.)

Very true. I'd take a look at DSpace or Open Library for examples of software designed to handle gigantic numbers of documents and maintain sensible indexes for them.

Found it. It was called Wendin-DOS.

I don't know about Mingo County WV. I also live in Southwest Virginia and the rules are a little stricter here but mining is mining. We have both strip mining and underground mining are gonna cause damage.

One of the main problems with underground mining is that it destroys the water table in the local vicinity. The residents sue every year and every year they get paperwork that says the mines are not responsible for their bad water.

Before you put us down, guess who owns the mineral rights in coal country? Mostly people from up north that more or less waged a little civil war with the government on their side to take what they wanted by force if necessary. That was a long time ago, but these rights are perpetual.

Oh and the severance taxes that the state levies from them to make things better for us, guess where that goes? To build shit up in the Northern Virginia DC area because there is more people that vote up there than there are here.

But... saying all of that is giving the world a distorted picture of Appalachian Culture. And coal mines aren't everywhere because coal ain't.

Now, this is a pretty cool place to live if you can make any money at all the cost of living is low and there is plenty to do.

We have real nice parks pretty damn close to those mines. A mine is a mine. You wouldn't have half of the comforts that you have if it were not for someone doing this dirty work.

And at least here your description mine reclamation is complete bullshit. These days you would get put out of business completely if you did that. Of course there are areas like that from the 70's and before that that look like that.
Putting top soil back and almost everything else like it was is a requirement here in Virginia.

I have been to WV too. Some of it is nice as hell.

http://www.nps.gov/cuga/

http://www.breakspark.com/

http://www.kingdomcome.org/kcsp/

It ain't like this any more. Read the book too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t9V227meio

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL2216184M/Bloody-Harlan

Also where I live, where the limestone is on the other side of the mountains where the coal is, there are probably more unexplored caves and undiscovered biology in those caves than anywhere in the US. Some you have to repel 50' just to enter them. There is also whitewater rafting. If your into four wheeling, those old abandoned strip jobs are fun for that. In Eastern Kentucky it is still legal to ride four wheeler during certain hours of the day and there are 3 or 4 for every household. They have everything you have and more except clean water. They have trash pickup. They have real good broadband.

I'm not sure what "grass seed in mutant green nitrogen fertilizer shit" is? It is called hydro seeding and some uses recycled newspaper. That stuff has a lot of different seeds besides grass in it. It's probably on just about every median in the US by now. Strip mining is just like building roads you know, except they don't get paved. They have to have their erosion and sediment output strictly enforced in VA. I think it's a federal thing now with the EPA.

What is grandfathered back that stuff doesn't apply to. There is an underground mine nearby that caught fire in the early 70's and is still slowly burning till this day. They buried it filled it in but a little smoke still comes off of the top of the mountain.

I wish I could say more but we are not all a bunch of dumb morons like Jed Clampett. Most of the stuff you depend upon to survive came from a mine somewhere. You don't treat people from Butte Montana like that. They have way more environmental problems than we do. Where did the copper in your PC come from or the steel in your car?

I just hope whomever goes down to Bolivia doesn't steal

Our only hope is that, with the long time it takes to "pave the way" and reconfigure a country around the private automobile (India, China) That those of us in the rest of the world will start wising up and stop building our cities around cars.

Otherwise we're all doomed:
Open Library: The Endless Pavement

LC, and especially it's under-appreciated traditional services, like cataloging, classification and authority control are so underfunded that they actually need to charge money to libraries to keep those projects alive. Alas.

The Library doesn't have a choice about charging for its services. The Federal government requires agencies to do "cost recovery" for data that they disseminate to the public. So if you want a copy of their catalog records (in bulk) they must charge the cost of making the copy available.

Fortunately, they allow you to download individual records from their database, skirting the Federal rules somewhat. And note that every record has a permanent URL, so you can download a record if you have the recordID (which is NOT visible in the OCLC WorldCat database, for this very reason). Also note that copies of LC data for books (millions of records) have been made available on the Internet Archive by the Open Library folks.

The problem with that theory is that it assumes that different people were in charge before and after the Revolution, but the truth is that it was largely the same people doing the same jobs but in different uniforms and with new job titles. The same thing happened after the USSR fell apart -- same people, same job, different uniform.

Suggested Reading:
Why They Behave Like Russians
now free from the Open Library project
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/whytheybehavelik00fiscmiss

The Open Library project has barely any users, let alone book contributors or code contributors, and that isn't even restricted to something as special-interest as textbooks. If they can't get the open model to work for the written word, I doubt Virginia (not known as a bastion of openness or science) is going to have any impact worthy of the name. I hope I'm wrong, but I won't hold my breath.

Now these guys have an idea for openness that looks far more interesting. Grids of Beowulfs of games. I can see that succeeding. (Can you imagine a MMORG that's also in the Top500 list? Or a planet-wide FPS? Can you imagine a LAN Party where the "server" is spread over the entire LAN - all that extra power available for tougher, more sophisticated games?) I'm willing to bet that more students at more Universities would be willing to be involved in a world-wide game engine than any number of textbook projects.

Communism didn't come about because people trusted the gov't.

Suggested reading: Why They Behave Like Russians
http://openlibrary.org/details/whytheybehavelik00fiscmiss

I went there http://www.openlibrary.org/toc.html. All I can see is maybe 20 book covers, most of them too small to read. There's no search tab or way to search the entire library (which AFAIK could be only 20 books anyway). The 'Table of Contents' tab is a list of sponsors, not books. There is a link to upload books, but that's it. This is how *not* to design a web site. If this is all they have, forget it. If this is a 20 book technology demonstrator, they're about to learn the 'Marimba' lesson: You only get one chance.

You'll do far better with Project Guttenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page has thousands of books, and (WOW!) the ability to search by author or title. If only OpenLibrary.org had thought of that...

They didn't mention the demo site - check out the About the technology page for a summary of ThingDB their new database framework - "a database that could hold tens of millions of records, that would allow random users to modify its entries and keep a full history of their changes, and that would hold arbitrary semi-structured data as users added it. Each of these problems had been solved on its own, but nobody had yet built a technology that solved all three together."

They didn't mention the demo site - check out the About the technology page for a summary of ThingDB their new database framework - "a database that could hold tens of millions of records, that would allow random users to modify its entries and keep a full history of their changes, and that would hold arbitrary semi-structured data as users added it. Each of these problems had been solved on its own, but nobody had yet built a technology that solved all three together."

I know the project is just starting, but here it goes.

They should republish the raw data the same way Wikipedia and even IMDb does. I for one am not going to contribute to any data collection project that I can't later use myself.

Their schema doesn't differentiate between editions. If I understand it right, that means that for the 3000 existing editions of "Tom Sawyer" released over the years, by different publishers in different countries and languages, the book's description has to be replicated for each one. That can't be good. I don't have a quick solution to this myself. Sometimes (esp. with tech books), a new edition changes content significantly compared to the previous one, sometimes they're exactly the same.

Collecting the cover images is a great service. However, doesn't this infringe on the publisher's copyright? Is this still fair use? What about countries like Germany without fair use laws--will German books still be OK because the data is collected in the USA (I guess)?

Add a feature to upload book descriptions as XML. Suggest a DTD. I have a list of my book collection stored as an XML file, so have others (maybe not natively, but book collection management software usually has an export function). It should be possible to automate the process of adding book information already stored in some digital format.

There should be some category system to pick from. Some may put Tom sawyer into "Novel, USA antebellum", others into "Novel, USA 19th century".

Somehow connect this to Wikipedia. The more prominent books have article pages. Maybe data could be retrieved from it as well. There are currently Tom Sawyer articles in 16 or so languages.

The edit page should group items better: stuff everyone understands (year published, title) first, then those things only specialists know.

The edit page's descriptors shouldn't be images but text which links to an explanation page for the same reason. BISAC? LCCN? UCC13? I know, I can find out what those are with a search engine, but I shouldn't have to.

Prepare for i18n. I guess LCCN is a library of congress code number? Those types of libraries exist in other countries, too. Each book can have a gazillion codes. Make this another tuple in the database: (book_id, code_id, code_value) instead of (book_id, lcc_id, isbn10, isbn13, 10 other codes in the same record).

Also i18n: store language codes with all textual columns. A description is most likely going to be Hungarian for a book published in Hungary in Hungarian.

This complicates the schema a lot. Having very few tables is tempting, but it usually doesn't work well with the real world.

... here it is.

The press has concentrated on Microsoft's joining which is fantastic, but we also had 14 key libraries join which is also great news.
http://www.opencontentalliance.org is a good site for this stuff.

Something I am jazzed about is a cool bookviewer at http://www.openlibrary.org/ showing the first books from University of California sponsored by Yahoo! and the "vision book" there tells the story of what we envision and some of the announcements.

onward!

-brewster Digital Librarian Internet Archive (administers the Open Content Alliance)