[bksvol-discuss] Re: using machines for what they were meant to do - Long Post
- From: james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:51:01 -0400
Hi E.
Unfortunately, machines like it better when they can predict what they are
going to process. Using mark up is one way to attempt to make it easier on
the machines to do what They do. If this works out, publishers may be able
to automate creating the mark up the bookshare software needs, which is
good. Humans can help to do that, but unfortunately, as volunteers, we may
not have the luxury of being able to do it right away. It may be possible
to do some of it though.
Here is one example where humans may need to intervene. When you scan a
book from publisher A, they use font A, size A, style A to mark up their
chapter headings. When you scan a book from publisher B, they use Font B,
Size B, Style B to mark up their chapter headings. A machine would have no
way to know how to deal with that ahead of time. Human judgement must come
into play. You might be able to take your scanning software and, when you
see patterns, tell your scanning software to replace Font B, Size B, Style
B with Font A, Size A, Style A, assuming that there is a convention that
everyone decided on for which fonts, styles, and sizes chapter headings
will be marked up at. Then, you could stipulate to the machine that it will
look for Font A, Size A, Style A, and mark up chapter headers with whatever
DAISY code it does that with. Or, you may be able to create Word macros
that can look through documents and insert four colons in front of any
paragraphs whose text has a certain Word style or font attributes. For any
documents that don't adhere to whatever conventions we come up with, humans
are going to have to intervene at some point, because there is bound to be
text that the machines can't process. The machines should be smart enough
to reject a book, act like a compiler, and spit out messages that say that
on line n it didn't understand the formatting, so it left it alone. Humans
would have to go in and fix the issue and run the book through the machine
again.
Computers aren't magical. They're pretty stupid. We have to think for them.
Once things are set up, they can take a lot of the work away from us and
make us more efficient, which is something I am for, because that would get
tons more books into the system.
Thanks.
Jim
James D Homme, Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810
"The difference between those who get what they wish for and those who
don't is action. Therefore, every action you take is a complete
success,regardless of the results." -- Jerrold Mundis
Highmark internal only: For usability and accessibility:
http://highwire.highmark.com/sites/iwov/hwt093/
"E."
<thoth93@earthlin
k.net> To
Sent by: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
bksvol-discuss-bo cc
unce@xxxxxxxxxxxx
g Subject
[bksvol-discuss] using machines for
what they were meant to do
09/10/2008 12:17
PM
Please respond to
bksvol-discuss@fr
eelists.org
This is a rather long message. I am going to speak about hardware and
software as it relates to bookshare books. I may wax a bit
philosohical. The underlying path is a matter of philosophy.
Bookshare is adding many many books to our library at a ever more
rapid rate. Bookshare could get away with inferior tools like the
stripper in its younger days. Kind of like a teenager driving an old
car that breaks down a lot.
As bookshare has matured, the quality of some of its underlying
software has come up for criticism. That includes the stripper,
braille translation program, and other conversion tools.
I want to use my human brain to do things machines cannot do. A
properly configured hardware and software conbination will translate
correctly, and strip elegantly. (pause for fantasy please)
Returning from fantasy to reality. I know the up front expense may be
high. I know calculators now do what we used to write out by hand.
Let's all work together so humans can do what they do best and let's
use technology as well as we can in the process.
Relying on "brute force" human methods is so expense in terms of human
energy.
I am truly concerned about the learning curve. Maybe if I know more
from engineering, it will be easier to understand the underlying
philosophy of what seems to me "brute force" methods. I know I can
grind coffee beans by hand and save electricity but do I want to?
E.
At 07:39 AM 9/10/2008, you wrote:
>You are probably right E, but, given our experiences with the
>bookshare tool, do we really want to go down that road?
>
>Maybe if the daisy converter could put the codes in, and we could
>double check to make sure they are right.
>
>Bob
>----- Original Message ----- From: "E." <thoth93@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 3:10 AM
>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: where to download my novel
>
>
>>I go to conferences where they have seminars discussing the making
>>of Daisy books.I always thought engineering and software took care
>>of converting files to Daisy format. I am willing to insert tags.
>>Yet I wonder if this can perhaps be automated with conversion software.
>>
>>Asking volunteers to hand insert appropriate Daisy tags instead of
>>creating daisy files with appropriate software confuses me. Perhaps
>>it is because I know little about the software used to create Daisy
formatting.
>>
>>E.
>>
>>
>>At 03:15 PM 9/9/2008, you wrote:
>>>"An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England" will be on
>>>Bookshare... but in the meantime, you can download a PDF of it at
>>>
>>><http://www.sendspace.com/file/3fjbxt
>http://www.sendspace.com/file/3fjbxt
>>>
>>>They only hold it for a few days, so if you don't get to it just
>>>let me know and i will upload it again.
>>>
>>>Can't wait to hear what you think of the book.
>>>
>>>It's rated R, by the way.. graphic violence and sex.
>>>
>>>Nan Hawthorne
>>><http://www.nanhawthorne.com>www.nanhawthorne.com
>>>
>>>
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>>>This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
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>>
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