What are you reading?

H. W. Bancroft's History of California, 1840 to 1845

digitized version with thousands upon thousands of typos!!! :eusa_whistle:

I really am growing tired of that bullshit.

I have several ebooks and it seems that the one unified aspect they all have is bullshit errors. Simple things that can easily be fixed with a day or so of editing for a product that they are making a massive profit on (they have no need to pay for the production costs). It is bad business to be so nonchalant about selling this sub-par product.

The real kicker is that I can guarantee that there are original data files for many of these books that could easily be uploaded. Instead, they are using crappy ‘reading’ machines that digitize a physical copy, usually very poorly.
 
H. W. Bancroft's History of California, 1840 to 1845

digitized version with thousands upon thousands of typos!!! :eusa_whistle:

I really am growing tired of that bullshit.

I have several ebooks and it seems that the one unified aspect they all have is bullshit errors. Simple things that can easily be fixed with a day or so of editing for a product that they are making a massive profit on (they have no need to pay for the production costs). It is bad business to be so nonchalant about selling this sub-par product.

The real kicker is that I can guarantee that there are original data files for many of these books that could easily be uploaded. Instead, they are using crappy ‘reading’ machines that digitize a physical copy, usually very poorly.

Most of Bancroft's works can be downloaded as a pdf in the original format. For some reason, my programs won't let the work.

So, I'm stuck going through the version taken from an 1800's publication where the typeset from then doesn't visually match the type used in the digitization.
 
Recently, "1491 Before Columbus" and "1493 After Columbus" by Mann.
Sounds interesting to me. How would you grade it out?

My to do list is to reread Adam Smith and Karl Marx.

"Wealth of Nations" is pretty good online. For the life of me, I cannot comprehend anyone reading "Das Kapital". The best of Marx isn't even Marx; it's Engles "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" which seems to be out of print. That's a pretty good read. A good companion is "The ABC of Communism" by Nicholas I. Bukharin and Evgenii A. Preobrazahensky. They want over $28 for a paperback now. Mine cost $1.25, and it's a short book. I'd try the library.
 
I just finished "Getting to Yes" a principled book on negotiation. Good principles, but I'd have prefered more examples. Tough read at times just because it's more academic than practical.
 
H. W. Bancroft's History of California, 1840 to 1845

digitized version with thousands upon thousands of typos!!! :eusa_whistle:

I really am growing tired of that bullshit.

I have several ebooks and it seems that the one unified aspect they all have is bullshit errors. Simple things that can easily be fixed with a day or so of editing for a product that they are making a massive profit on (they have no need to pay for the production costs). It is bad business to be so nonchalant about selling this sub-par product.

The real kicker is that I can guarantee that there are original data files for many of these books that could easily be uploaded. Instead, they are using crappy ‘reading’ machines that digitize a physical copy, usually very poorly.

Most of Bancroft's works can be downloaded as a pdf in the original format. For some reason, my programs won't let the work.

So, I'm stuck going through the version taken from an 1800's publication where the typeset from then doesn't visually match the type used in the digitization.

Try caliber. AWESOME bit of freeware. It will change the format of virtually any ebook type file to virtually anything else. I know kindle type readers will not accept almost anything but their own file system so I have to use this all the time for my wife’s kindle. It will deal with pdf, lib, txt, html, epub and a hundred other formats. Best part is that it is easy as hell to use (my wife can barely turn her computer on and she uses it) and completely free.

The official site.
calibre - E-book management

There are plugins for it as well to tear the DRM out of files that have it to prevent changing the format as well.
 
Recently, "1491 Before Columbus" and "1493 After Columbus" by Mann.
Sounds interesting to me. How would you grade it out?

My to do list is to reread Adam Smith and Karl Marx.

"Wealth of Nations" is pretty good online. For the life of me, I cannot comprehend anyone reading "Das Kapital". The best of Marx isn't even Marx; it's Engles "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" which seems to be out of print. That's a pretty good read. A good companion is "The ABC of Communism" by Nicholas I. Bukharin and Evgenii A. Preobrazahensky. They want over $28 for a paperback now. Mine cost $1.25, and it's a short book. I'd try the library.

I would be surprised if any of that was not public domain and available free through Google.
 

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