babiegoose.com

ok - so thanks to paolo for letting me know, but google is working with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford to scan their collections...

go here to see what I mean...

due to copyrights and what not - most searches will only display a portion of the book - so you won't be able to read the book cover to cover online...

UNLESS... the copyright was not renewed or the book was written prior to 1923...

after looking up stuff about copyrights I found that all books published prior to 1923 are public domain (in the US - I don't know what that means for foriegn books, but I know that I can read and search through through the looking glass and what alice found there online - want to read about the jabberwocky - search for it, want to know about the tweedle dee - google it...)

in any case, you can do search for complete books and then browse through or search through an individual book.

seriously - it's AMAZING...

once they are finished it will be even more amazing.

unless you don't care about books, then it's probably not such a big deal for you...

if the book's copyright is still in force, they will tell you where you can find the book in a library or they will link you to a place where you can buy it...

the project will be on going but apparently it was announced in december 2004... but check it out...

pretty sweet.

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home
Mmmmmmmm

Maybe surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh I miss you, you know

And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
“I’m fine baby, how are you?”
Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

Let me go home
I’m just too far
from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
But this was not your dream
But you always believed in me

Another winter day has come
And gone away
And even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be allright
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home

~Home, Michael Buble

what do you like more - cheetos crunchy or cheetos puffs?

I myself, I'm a crunchy...

I know a few people who like them puffed...

and I know one who likes them stale.

weirdoes.

just this very moment, I realized that I like reading from books. That is assuming that I am trying to read pages at a time - or rather, I like reading off pages.

here's the problem - I'm a big fan of searching through text. obviously, it is much harder to search through text manually than if you had computer do it. So I'm a big fan of computers doing searching through text.

I guess the best way to alleviate this problem is to scan every single known book so that the text and captions can be searchable and store it electronically.

I'm sure that this is being done for a number of books, but I don't think they are doing it for all textual material.

do you realize the implications of that?

first, we could store it somewhere on the web, in a format that cannot be easily altered (so we don't have an editing or version control problem)

second, we wouldn't have to traverse the country for a specific tome, or better we could share information between schools.

third, we could bankrupt publishing companies and the manual spell and grammar checkers (although I would assume that some manual process would have to be done as no automated process is entirely perfect) - but not that this is a good thing...

but the problem would be that you would run into the whole digital information infringing upon profits of the companies that make them - so sell subscriptions - $10 a month for unlimited access or $1 per MB downloaded or something like that...

another problem would be to get all of the text into a digital text format - it would be especially hard for eariler works, and if there were hand written documents, any hidden messages could potentially be lost...

there are probably bunches of other issues with this whole thing, not to mention money and storage space, and maintenance, security, and retrieval times and what not...

plus, I think the the scanning process could destroy certain volumes since the book would have to be taken apart in some cases to scan it.

but books can't last forever, and I heard somewhere that if something makes in on the net - it is virtually indestructible.

think about it, with wireless technology exploding, how cool would it be to bring up any page from a book in a moment's notice. people would be able to quote authors directly, follow procedures, etc...

once you get all the books in history input into the database of books all that would be left would be each and every book that came out every day, and how hard can that be? :-P

plus, we would have the added benefit of removing from the historical record all of the bad books ever written...
:-P

::: ::: :::

In the defense of keeping paper books, having a library would be neat... you know, the big ones with the huge books and the rolling ladders and the leather winged chairs with a huge fire place and nice rugs and curving stairs...

of course, that requires money too...

and it's a bit frivolous.