My only experience comes from a press that is not "math serious" yet which does some math--no math textbooks, etc., but there is still need for equations. When we have previously done math I believe it has been done via Quark XPress eXtensions. Others also have ponted out other UNIXy equation tools.
I couldn't answer your question about math publishers as I've never had experience there (and I did mention that the university type settings for which most math publishing is intended is highly texed), however, from looking at O'Reilly books, Quark XPress is used, gtroff is used, FrameMaker is used, and from my own experience Quark XPress and Autopage are used.
As an aside, from the Camel book "The print version of this book was created by translating the SGML source into a set of gtroff macros using a filter developed at ORA by norman Walsh...underlying macro set on the basis of the GNU gtroff -gs macros..." etc (I skipped a bit). They also used Quark XPress.
That wasn't my intended meaning.. What I intended to convey was that if you have a list of 5 programs, latex would not be necessarily be first on the list--others would be used first.
Let's not go too far now..Sure, it's a good product, and great for all the reasons you mention, but the only game in town (for mathematics or anything)? No, not really. Sure it's used a lot for university journals (papers etc), by students (engineers at my university HAVE to learn it, even if they only learn bold, center, etc), and even by some tech-oriented presses (some O'Reilly books--not all--use latex for at least some of their content..I'm not sure I've seen even an O'reilly book that uses tex and nothing else).
In the publishing field, there is quite a lot of software used before latex and from what I understand, it's looked down upon by many as being lower quality (though it seems these stigmas originated in years past...I have no idea if they are still justified)--and I don't mean in comparison to MS Word or WordPerfect. The publishing field still also largely uses Macs...and pre-OSX macs at that.
No clue about what? Europe is leftist leaning, sure, Ayn Rand's "People's States of Europe" have largely come to be, in practice if not in name. America is more moderate leaning, and plummeting towards Europe sure, I'll give you that. what am I missing?
"Toxic Chemical: Any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation [etc]"
That was the only occurrence of the phrase "temporary incapacitation." Is making the ground slippery really something they intended to catch? after all, wouldn't ice then be a toxic chemical? I think they're going for things that directly affect the human body.
Freedom is important because in the end it is the only thing that we can truly have. There is nothing in that world that one can truly control, besides your own thoughts and actions. If you don't have control your own thoughts or actions, you are no better than the computer i am typing this on--you are a mindless drone or automaton, whose existence is defined only in the needs of others. A bleak and dreary existence.
I deny my lack of human. I would say I revel in my being human, whereas you find being human something dirty and need to try to find some "other" purpose for which you live, since you confine your life by this collectivist approach.
As for the maturity, check out who is posting their opinions anonymously (afraid of losing precious karma--come now, isn't hoarding karma selfish?? hehe;) ) and who is posting in the open.
Why is selfishness bad and sharing good? You're not presenting any arguments, just presenting ad hominem attacks and repeating the same tired dogmatic expression over and over again, as if with enough repetition they will become true.
And it sounds like you're trying to justify a unfree communalistic society..Why should I share my computer with anyone?? It's mine, I paid for it, I put a lot of money and hours into it. Others can get their own computers, and if they want to share it fine--you too can feel free to shaer your own computer.
At my university, IPv6 has been deployed since last year, maybe longer. I've been running FreeBSD w/ IPV6 for at least that long. Honestly, it hasn't made that big a difference for me:)
Wait, are you describing Clinton or Bush?? Hell, Dick Morris and other ex-clintonites will straight out admit EVERY decision that came out of the Clinton presidency was made by following poles. I don't see this nearly as true for Bush.
Before posting you might want to read my message more clearly...I never said the blind were not worth selling products to..in fact in another post I specifically say:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=27089&thresh ol d=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=2922886#2923035
You'd see that I'm not saying that blind people should be persecuted or something, but only that the overall demand for ebooks is so incredibly small today (not to mention new, fledgling, and not well supported) that the demand for blind products etc isn't there. Maybe one day...not today.
A question--has there actually been any evidence of blind people using elcomsoft's software?
Why do reading aids such as special magnifying lenses and other attachments to normal books exist today (for a small demographic). Because there's almost always money to be made. A good family friend is legally blind, and a librarian. As my grandparents are getting older, he's given them catalogues of stuff for legally blind/blind people...there's a lot of it--there clearly IS money to be made here.
The book has evolved over thousands of years. Thousands of hours have gone into the development of every aspect...size, fonts, look, colors, etc. ebooks will take a while to match.
So whose to stop them from making a proprietary, braille reader. Or a proprietary reader that speaks the ebook?
No it wouldn't, it would be more like opening a brothel in Amsterdam and selling prostitutes to U.S. citizens on vacation to sneak into the U.S.. You left out a key point in the analogy.
Except that Elcomsoft has office in the US, and sold the product within the US. The transaction was made on US soil, thus is subject to US laws.
Thanks for the info! That's what I thought but I didn't have my latin dictionary with me, and none of the online ones I checked seemed to have 'virus' in them. Didn't want to post false information on slashdot;)
Books will be around forever - people still carve messages into stone, too. But ebooks are feasible today - I've read several books off my computer. I don't see why the few remaining materials technology problems aren't going to be solved, and something cheaper and more searchable should overtake a lot of the non-decorative uses for paper books.
That's your opinion...mine is that it still doesn't work 1/100 as well as an actual book. I find my focus and retention from reading off a monitor is not the same as a book. This an opinion thing though, so no more can really be said.
On your second point, I'm forced to admit that you are correct..if the blind are prevented from reading, then they can't read...yeah, that makes sense, I'm not sure I would've followed that leap of logic if you hadn't pointed it out:P But who is preventing the blind from reading?? no one! No one is saying anything that could be possibly construed that way.
Are you implying that the blind can't use computers? One of the college system administrators is blind. If you have a GUI, you override the standard GUI display function to send it to a text to speech converter. If you use console, you just send the screen to a text to speech converter as appropriate.
Of course!! And it's via these and similar ebook methods that ebook readers for blind people will no doubt be available. Or perhaps even better a text->braille converter.
Good engineering demands that you don't put stuff like this off until the end when all you can provide is a hack. Design it right the first time, so the blind and the Chinese and the Hindi and all the other "special cases" can be handled cleanly.
Can you give me some example of how ebooks today are engineered at a fundamental level so as not to allow eventual blind access via methods that you and I both pointed out? I don't really see the point of your argument here, doesn't seem to make sense.
There will come a day when nobody but eccentrics and bibliophiles will read normal books. Everything will be digital. If this case were to succeed, the US government would condem the blind people of the world to illiteracy. (Note to lawyers : feel free to use my comment in your closing arguments:) )
Well, I think you're terribly wrong about this. For one, I think books will be around forever. There are still some serious issues to deal with, that I don't think will all be resolved within our lifetime (I am a college student;)
And as for your comment about blind people being condemned to illiteracy, that is just so hysterical it's not even funny. How do you think blind people use computers today?? The reason that ebook readers (hardware, not computer software) haven't been made for blind people is because the overall demand for ebooks is so tiny that the blind market would be so miniscule as to matter not at all. There are a lot of other issues to resolve with ebooks before worrying about special cases like this.
Interesting to note that there is no mention of the 'we didn't violate Russian law' argument."
I don't see that as interesting because it couldn't possibly be construed as a legal argument, or logical in the slightest for that matter. If you are in the US, you obey US laws. If you sell a product in the US, your product conforms to US laws. Saying "we didn't violate Russian law" would be like opening a windows shopping brothel in Time Square and saying "we didn't violate the law in Amsterdam!" Ridiculous!
Slashdot Mirror
My only experience comes from a press that is not "math serious" yet which does some math--no math textbooks, etc., but there is still need for equations. When we have previously done math I believe it has been done via Quark XPress eXtensions. Others also have ponted out other UNIXy equation tools.
I couldn't answer your question about math publishers as I've never had experience there (and I did mention that the university type settings for which most math publishing is intended is highly texed), however, from looking at O'Reilly books, Quark XPress is used, gtroff is used, FrameMaker is used, and from my own experience Quark XPress and Autopage are used.
Sorry for my confusion between tex and latex.
As an aside, from the Camel book "The print version of this book was created by translating the SGML source into a set of gtroff macros using a filter developed at ORA by norman Walsh...underlying macro set on the basis of the GNU gtroff -gs macros..." etc (I skipped a bit). They also used Quark XPress.
That wasn't my intended meaning.. What I intended to convey was that if you have a list of 5 programs, latex would not be necessarily be first on the list--others would be used first.
sorry for the misunderstanding.
Let's not go too far now..Sure, it's a good product, and great for all the reasons you mention, but the only game in town (for mathematics or anything)? No, not really. Sure it's used a lot for university journals (papers etc), by students (engineers at my university HAVE to learn it, even if they only learn bold, center, etc), and even by some tech-oriented presses (some O'Reilly books--not all--use latex for at least some of their content..I'm not sure I've seen even an O'reilly book that uses tex and nothing else).
In the publishing field, there is quite a lot of software used before latex and from what I understand, it's looked down upon by many as being lower quality (though it seems these stigmas originated in years past...I have no idea if they are still justified)--and I don't mean in comparison to MS Word or WordPerfect. The publishing field still also largely uses Macs...and pre-OSX macs at that.
No clue about what? Europe is leftist leaning, sure, Ayn Rand's "People's States of Europe" have largely come to be, in practice if not in name. America is more moderate leaning, and plummeting towards Europe sure, I'll give you that. what am I missing?
I would say that the scary part is the CNN would be on the right in Europe!!
Btw, I'm also curious if the post knocking the US gets modded up, and this one gets modded down.
Directly from the link you sent:
"Toxic Chemical: Any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation [etc]"
That was the only occurrence of the phrase "temporary incapacitation." Is making the ground slippery really something they intended to catch? after all, wouldn't ice then be a toxic chemical? I think they're going for things that directly affect the human body.
Freedom is important because in the end it is the only thing that we can truly have. There is nothing in that world that one can truly control, besides your own thoughts and actions. If you don't have control your own thoughts or actions, you are no better than the computer i am typing this on--you are a mindless drone or automaton, whose existence is defined only in the needs of others. A bleak and dreary existence.
;) ) and who is posting in the open.
I deny my lack of human. I would say I revel in my being human, whereas you find being human something dirty and need to try to find some "other" purpose for which you live, since you confine your life by this collectivist approach.
As for the maturity, check out who is posting their opinions anonymously (afraid of losing precious karma--come now, isn't hoarding karma selfish?? hehe
Why is selfishness bad and sharing good? You're not presenting any arguments, just presenting ad hominem attacks and repeating the same tired dogmatic expression over and over again, as if with enough repetition they will become true.
And it sounds like you're trying to justify a unfree communalistic society..Why should I share my computer with anyone?? It's mine, I paid for it, I put a lot of money and hours into it. Others can get their own computers, and if they want to share it fine--you too can feel free to shaer your own computer.
awesome, March 2, 1982 here ^^
My mistake :)
and geez is the 20 seconds rule annoying!
Scott
At my university, IPv6 has been deployed since last year, maybe longer. I've been running FreeBSD w/ IPV6 for at least that long. Honestly, it hasn't made that big a difference for me :)
Yeah, and nobody is making you buy their games, so you have nothing to complain about!
Scott
Haha, not only did you not bothering reading the article (links), but you didn't even finish reading the post!!
:)
"With Covalent already selling a commercial version of 2.0, hopefully we will see a full release of the open source version in the near future." -krow
well done
Wait, are you describing Clinton or Bush?? Hell, Dick Morris and other ex-clintonites will straight out admit EVERY decision that came out of the Clinton presidency was made by following poles. I don't see this nearly as true for Bush.
Before posting you might want to read my message more clearly...I never said the blind were not worth selling products to..in fact in another post I specifically say:
h ol d=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=2922886#2923035
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=27089&thres
You'd see that I'm not saying that blind people should be persecuted or something, but only that the overall demand for ebooks is so incredibly small today (not to mention new, fledgling, and not well supported) that the demand for blind products etc isn't there. Maybe one day...not today.
A question--has there actually been any evidence of blind people using elcomsoft's software?
Scott
Why do reading aids such as special magnifying lenses and other attachments to normal books exist today (for a small demographic). Because there's almost always money to be made. A good family friend is legally blind, and a librarian. As my grandparents are getting older, he's given them catalogues of stuff for legally blind/blind people...there's a lot of it--there clearly IS money to be made here.
Scott
The book has evolved over thousands of years. Thousands of hours have gone into the development of every aspect...size, fonts, look, colors, etc. ebooks will take a while to match.
So whose to stop them from making a proprietary, braille reader. Or a proprietary reader that speaks the ebook?
Scott
Except that Elcomsoft has office in the US, and sold the product within the US. The transaction was made on US soil, thus is subject to US laws.
Scott
Thanks for the info! That's what I thought but I didn't have my latin dictionary with me, and none of the online ones I checked seemed to have 'virus' in them. Didn't want to post false information on slashdot ;)
thanks!
That's your opinion...mine is that it still doesn't work 1/100 as well as an actual book. I find my focus and retention from reading off a monitor is not the same as a book. This an opinion thing though, so no more can really be said.
On your second point, I'm forced to admit that you are correct..if the blind are prevented from reading, then they can't read...yeah, that makes sense, I'm not sure I would've followed that leap of logic if you hadn't pointed it out :P But who is preventing the blind from reading?? no one! No one is saying anything that could be possibly construed that way.
Are you implying that the blind can't use computers? One of the college system administrators is blind. If you have a GUI, you override the standard GUI display function to send it to a text to speech converter. If you use console, you just send the screen to a text to speech converter as appropriate.
Of course!! And it's via these and similar ebook methods that ebook readers for blind people will no doubt be available. Or perhaps even better a text->braille converter.
Good engineering demands that you don't put stuff like this off until the end when all you can provide is a hack. Design it right the first time, so the blind and the Chinese and the Hindi and all the other "special cases" can be handled cleanly.
Can you give me some example of how ebooks today are engineered at a fundamental level so as not to allow eventual blind access via methods that you and I both pointed out? I don't really see the point of your argument here, doesn't seem to make sense.
Scott
Well, I think you're terribly wrong about this. For one, I think books will be around forever. There are still some serious issues to deal with, that I don't think will all be resolved within our lifetime (I am a college student ;)
And as for your comment about blind people being condemned to illiteracy, that is just so hysterical it's not even funny. How do you think blind people use computers today?? The reason that ebook readers (hardware, not computer software) haven't been made for blind people is because the overall demand for ebooks is so tiny that the blind market would be so miniscule as to matter not at all. There are a lot of other issues to resolve with ebooks before worrying about special cases like this.
Scott
I don't see that as interesting because it couldn't possibly be construed as a legal argument, or logical in the slightest for that matter. If you are in the US, you obey US laws. If you sell a product in the US, your product conforms to US laws. Saying "we didn't violate Russian law" would be like opening a windows shopping brothel in Time Square and saying "we didn't violate the law in Amsterdam!" Ridiculous!
Scott
Oh wow, finally it pays off having to take Latin as first language
Incorrect! That's wrong. I don't know of any latin word that goes from a nounUS form to nounII form for plural. silvus -> silvi. bonus -> boni.
And for whoever said it came from latin vir--wrong. Vir is latin for man, cleary not the correct etymological root of the word ;)
I'm unsure of the direct etymology...there is a latin word "virulentia" for stink that sounds reasonable.
So let's assume virus is a purely english word. We pluralize english words with 's'! Viruses!
Scott