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Visualizing All ISBNs

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Re: Visualizing All ISBNs

#31

Post by sebstefan »

yawndex wrote: post #21
sebstefan wrote: post #18

>$10,000 bounty >There is much to explore here, so we’re announcing a bounty for improving the visualization above. Unlike most of our bounties, this one is time-bound. You have to submit your open source code by 2025-01-31 (23:59 UTC). >The best submission will get $6,000, second place is $3,000, and third place is $1,000. >All bounties will be awarded using Monero (XMR). ? Why are they using crypto, and, weirdly en…

Because the efforts of Anna's Archive are unfortunately currently very much illegal, and XMR is one of the few cryptocurrencies that can actually offer some privacy to its users.

I've used XMR before. Just surprised seeing it to pay for legitimate & harmless visualization work.

I see, that makes sense

Re: Visualizing All ISBNs

#32

Post by thomasingalls »

friend_Fernando wrote: post #20
sebstefan wrote: post #18

>$10,000 bounty >There is much to explore here, so we’re announcing a bounty for improving the visualization above. Unlike most of our bounties, this one is time-bound. You have to submit your open source code by 2025-01-31 (23:59 UTC). >The best submission will get $6,000, second place is $3,000, and third place is $1,000. >All bounties will be awarded using Monero (XMR). ? Why are they using crypto, and, weirdly en…

[flagged]

Major efforts at creating "everything" libraries are usually looked upon as a positive effort that benefits all of humanity, and we generally mourn the loss of any such effort, regardless of whether the effort is against the laws of the state at the time the effort was undertaken, or even if the collection was created in a morally reprehensible way.

See: Library of Alexandria, Library of Congress, GenBank, the Svalbard seed vault, Google Books, Internet Archive and all its efforts, ...the Louvre, and most major museums.

In general, we collectively recognize - without having to be told - that preservation of knowledge is a noble and worthy effort that transcends the fleeting whims of a population at a point in time.

All that to say, people probably don't need to be tricked into liking such efforts. They're popular because of what they are.

Re: Visualizing All ISBNs

#33

Post by Over2Chars »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #23
Over2Chars wrote: post #16

[flagged]

The problem with such judgment is that they are subjective and subject to biases that change over time. Almost every scrap of information from ancient civilizations is considered priceless at this point because so few is left of it. Anything from obscene graffiti, shopping lists, personal messages, etc. All of it. Many autocratic regimes editorialize and censure all forms of publications. But even in the US, which is…

All action is "subjective and subject to biases that change over time". This would then imply I could never take any action, because it's just subjective and biased. Maybe that's an exaggeration of your position, but you do seem to be suggesting inaction or the impossibility of judgement. I reject this position 100%.

I would suggest that judgement is a critical part of our civilization, and it's judgement that says those bits of obscene graffiti in Pompeii that makes it so.

Or else they could say "well, we can't claim ancient cave art is priceless, because we're biased and our biases will change over time. Maybe in a thousand years we'll discover that ancient cave art is worthless, so we'll do nothing".

In fact you have judged my opinions and shared your judgement with me. Good job!

Your characterization of regimes as autocratic is judgmental, biased and will change over time. But right now that's your judgement and I applaud it, even if I disagree.

Gosh, book burning. Not backing up a romance novel or cookbook is definitely analogous to book burning, but I'll play along.

It was a symbolic act to show a rejection of ideas, not an attempt to eradicate the books, much in the same way Gandhi encouraged the burning of foreign made clothing and products. He wasn't going to rid the world of British cloth nor were the Germans going to rid the world of non-German ideas.

So yeah, when all the badly written cook books, romance novels, and children's books are in a huge bonfire, you can blame me, personally.

Re: Visualizing All ISBNs

#34

Post by fear-anger-hate »

sebstefan wrote: post #18

>$10,000 bounty >There is much to explore here, so we’re announcing a bounty for improving the visualization above. Unlike most of our bounties, this one is time-bound. You have to submit your open source code by 2025-01-31 (23:59 UTC). >The best submission will get $6,000, second place is $3,000, and third place is $1,000. >All bounties will be awarded using Monero (XMR). ? Why are they using crypto, and, weirdly en…

They use monero because what they are doing (copyright infringement) will get you in to big trouble anywhere in the western world. Without cryptocurrencies much of the modern large scale archival efforts wouldn't be possible, or at the very least would significantly increase risks for the people participating in it. For me this alone is a good enough reason to admit that there are valid reasons for existence of privacy coins.

The harm they may cause in the short term via tax avoidance or being used to buy drugs is minimal, but the possibility that because of them archivists are able to fund servers for data that future historians wouldn't have otherwise been able to get their hands on? Priceless.

Re: Visualizing All ISBNs

#36

Post by flir »

Over2Chars wrote: post #35
flir wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone's 41% is different. Long tail, innit.

Gosh.

You mention the example of romance novels above.

There's a schlocky Victorian pulp novel that's of no use to anyone - except that it happens to contain a fantastically detailed description of an abandoned saltings in my hometown that nobody ever thought to record in any way. For me, those two paragraphs are gold.

If the novel hadn't been digitised as part of Google's Books Archive Project, I wouldn't have been able to find those two paragraphs. Digitisation not only creates backups, it enables completely new ways of interacting with those texts (eg Google's Ngram Viewer).

Re: Visualizing All ISBNs

#37

Post by friend_Fernando »

thomasingalls wrote: post #32
friend_Fernando wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Major efforts at creating "everything" libraries are usually looked upon as a positive effort that benefits all of humanity, and we generally mourn the loss of any such effort, regardless of whether the effort is against the laws of the state at the time the effort was undertaken, or even if the collection was created in a morally reprehensible way. See: Library of Alexandria, Library of Congress, GenBank, the Svalba…

No one is objecting to knowledge preservation - when you just preserve it instead of abundantly replicating it with a wink.

Reasonable people are objecting to copyright law violation, for the simple reason that it disincentivizes further knowledge creation.

Even more reasonable people are objecting to weaponizing copyright law violation on behalf of the vilest dictatorship on the planet.

Re: Visualizing All ISBNs

#39

Post by heinrich5991 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #23
Over2Chars wrote: post #16

[flagged]

The problem with such judgment is that they are subjective and subject to biases that change over time. Almost every scrap of information from ancient civilizations is considered priceless at this point because so few is left of it. Anything from obscene graffiti, shopping lists, personal messages, etc. All of it. Many autocratic regimes editorialize and censure all forms of publications. But even in the US, which is…

> Possession or distribution of his books is still not allowed in Germany.

AFAIK this has never been true in Germany (for the book Mein Kampf at least). AFAIK the German state of Bavaria inherited Hitler's copyright on the book, and did not republish it. This means that no one was allowed to print it for copyright reasons, but you could still own or trade existing copies of the book. After 2015, 70 years after Hitler's death, the book entered the public domain. Looking into Wikipedia, uncommented reprints have been forbidden: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mein_Kampf&oldid=..., which I didn't know before.

Re: Visualizing All ISBNs

#40

Post by Over2Chars »

flir wrote: post #36
Over2Chars wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh.

You mention the example of romance novels above. There's a schlocky Victorian pulp novel that's of no use to anyone - except that it happens to contain a fantastically detailed description of an abandoned saltings in my hometown that nobody ever thought to record in any way. For me, those two paragraphs are gold. If the novel hadn't been digitised as part of Google's Books Archive Project, I wouldn't have been able t…

Well I guess your one valuable paragraph that matters only to you justifies backing up millions (billions?) of human and soon to be AI generated books, because someone, somewhere, at some time will find a line or two valuable. Maybe.

I retract my position, let's back up everything!

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