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Latest French Attacks: updates (in English)

Started by albrecht, November 13, 2015, 03:50:16 PM

pyewacket

Quote from: Yorkshire pud on November 25, 2015, 12:59:37 PM
That's him turning the other cheek. 'True' Christianity is pick and mix; choose the bits you like (which can change at any time)  and ignore the bits you don't like. Simple.

Yorkie- I'm more surprised when it doesn't happen, which is rare these days.

SredniVashtar

Quote from: pyewacket on November 25, 2015, 05:18:09 PM
Yorkie- I'm more surprised when it doesn't happen, which is rare these days.

You've got to love a place where people can get feisty about different versions of creation myths. And Mithraism, of all things!

- "Tertullian mentioned Mithraism in terms that suggested it was a serious rival to Christianity".
- "Well, you can tell your friend Tertullian he's a dumbass! Screw him and SCREW YOU!!".

Next we'll be having fist fights about the Categorical Imperative.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 25, 2015, 05:36:30 PM


Next we'll be having fist fights about the Categorical Imperative.


Kant was a crackpot. I think that sums it up nicely.

pyewacket

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 25, 2015, 05:36:30 PM
You've got to love a place where people can get feisty about different versions of creation myths. And Mithraism, of all things!

- "Tertullian mentioned Mithraism in terms that suggested it was a serious rival to Christianity".
- "Well, you can tell your friend Tertullian he's a dumbass! Screw him and SCREW YOU!!".

Next we'll be having fist fights about the Categorical Imperative.

And on that note above-there you have it, dear SV.  ;)






Meister_000

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 25, 2015, 05:36:30 PM

Next we'll be having fist fights about the Categorical Imperative.

You wish!  :D  Those are the days dreams are made of.  I'd die a happy man were it only so. We'd be in hella better shape if _that_ were the biggest hot-button issue or avoid topic of the day!

Actually, CI -type content probably _is_ the underlying issue, if only we'd see.  And then too, the CI was intended specifically (and by-design) to allow Humans to conceptualize and discuss the timeless Golden Rule and more WITHOUT having to resort-to and couch arguments in GOD and Religion terms. THAT was Kant's Enterprise and Mission from the start, by design (I'll stress that again). In his Moral Philosophy, Kant made every effort to cover as many requisite bases as needed to present a free-standing non-religious yet Universal tool and tool-set. He was both very familiar with Christian content (devout Pietist [Luthuran] mother) and also keenly aware that we cannot do without "some" kind of moral teaching and teaching vocabulary.

Sorry fact is, today, we give our kids _nothing_, there IS a void left were Religion used to be and reign. Post-Kantian Relativist philosophy effectively removed Philosophy from the "Practical" (as in usable) sphere so that by the early 1900's we had nothing left to hold on to. No Religion AND no Philosophy! We have nothing left, and thus nothing to give our children -- and it shows! This is untenable. Kant FORESAW this problem. He was a Wise man, farsighted, large-minded and large-hearted. He strove to leave us a gift, a Practical usable serviceable tool, born of the Enlightenment, for future generations to benefit from, his contribution to "the Preservation and Flourishing of Human-kind". He was a kind of "Theologian" that the world had not seen for Millennia, if ever, before. He does not rank among the greatest of all minds ever for no reason, and is not routinely spoken of in the same breath with the likes of Plato for no reason. Plato was a Theologian too, the most influential Theologian of all time, the first Western Theologian. Kant may well have been the Last. They are Book-Ends, Plato and Kant. Two of the greatest Treasures we have.

You do undertstand (people) that we have nothing to offer the Muslim mind as an alternative, if we don't have Kant. Think hard and long on that. Kant is The Gateway. He is "the safety-net" whilst throwing off the Yoke of Religion. As the youngins say; "Word".   [And I am deadly serious.]

I was going to hedge a little, by saying something like, ya but of course we have the Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Human Rights traditions to give to them as well. But then I recalled that Kant knew that, and in fact did that, and that Kant _was_ the last and the best of "the Natural Lawyers" too!  He was able to employ the principles of natural law _ without_ resorting to "God" per say as "The Source" of those Laws and Rights, and do it with some degree of Philosophical and academic Rigor, the best he was capable of. Evolved and Autonomous Rational free-agent Beings, humans, from all corners of the globe, should be able to agree, _rationally_ on a set of key guidelines. While Kant was certainly not the first Humanist, he was the first to speak of "Human Rights" as such. He did lift us firmly over the line and into the New Age of _Global _Moral_ perspectives. He did coin and propose the phrase and notion of a "League of Nations" (in his 1795 essay "Perpetual Peace".) So yes, we can only wish that the day comes when Kant might be a household name [albeit 200 years delayed!] and taken as something to meet or beat, put-up or shut-up -- ya, that I could live with, and with that, you'all might stand a chance of surviving, yet.

I'm going to hell for how funny I found this.


Meister_000

Quote from: Meister_000 on November 26, 2015, 12:54:14 AM

. . . without having to resort-to and couch arguments in GOD,  Religion and Revelation, terms. THAT was Kant's Enterprise and Mission from the start, by design (I'll stress that again). In his Moral Philosophy, Kant made every effort to cover as many requisite bases as needed to present a free-standing non-religious yet Universal tool and tool-set. He was both very familiar with Christian content (devout Pietist [Luthuran] mother) and also keenly aware that we cannot do without "some" kind of moral teaching and teaching vocabulary. . .

. . .we have nothing to offer the Muslim mind as an alternative, if we don't have Kant. Think hard and long on that. Kant is The Gateway. He is "the safety-net" whilst throwing off the Yoke of Religion. . .

Apart from his explicit works of Moral Philosophy, this book, at least, of Kant's other writtings, must be included in order to gain a fuller understanding of his overall thoughts on related matters. [the introductions alone in this edition are worth the cover price]

"Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone" -- Immanuel Kant, 1793
Translation, Introductions, and Notes by: Greene and Hudson, Harper (Torch books) 1958 was the first ed of this particular translation, editorial staff and publisher [$11 USD New, delivered]

Amazon USA
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-within-Limits-Reason-Torchbooks/dp/0061300675/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448603316&sr=1-1&keywords=religion+within+the+limits+of+reason+alone

Customer Reviews page (same book and edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-within-Limits-Reason-Torchbooks/product-reviews/0061300675/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0061300675/sr=1-2/qid=1448608938/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1448608938&sr=1-2

pate

If I told you I told yew sew a few yarns ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UorvFyr1C6I

WELL is a derp subject.

Ima idjet.

Meister_000

The Internet Archive currently has for free download
The complete 6 Vol set of the 2011 edition (pdf) of
The New Cambridge History of Islam

https://archive.org/details/TheNewCambridgeHistoryOfIslamVolume1

Click the large italic "i" icon at the upper right corner of page for each of the six files and choose desired format: pdf, epub, etc.

Earlier editions of Cambridge Histories (often superior to the newest) are locatable.

SredniVashtar

Quote from: Meister_000 on November 28, 2015, 05:02:17 AM
The Internet Archive currently has for free download
The complete 6 Vol set of the 2011 edition (pdf) of
The New Cambridge History of Islam

I can't think of a single book that I have got from there that hasn't been almost totally unreadable. The scanning is a joke, and they obviously never go back and check what it all looks like. I know that e-books almost always have a higher than usual number of misprints, but they almost turn it into an art form. Maybe this one is better.

Meister_000

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 28, 2015, 05:34:22 AM
I can't think of a single book that I have got from there that hasn't been almost totally unreadable. The scanning is a joke, and they obviously never go back and check what it all looks like. I know that e-books almost always have a higher than usual number of misprints, but they almost turn it into an art form. Maybe this one is better.

In the time it took you to write this you could have had them all.
I'm not an idiot. I checked them first (the pdfs that is).

I've gotten plenty of good stuff from them. Oh well.

SredniVashtar

Quote from: Meister_000 on November 28, 2015, 08:41:03 AM
In the time it took you to write this you could have had them all.
I'm not an idiot. I checked them first.

I've gotten plenty of good stuff from them. Oh well.

I appreciate the link, by the way, but it has been my experience that something goes wrong in the formatting - particularly when you try to read them in anything other than PDF. It's not something that you can easily tell at a glance - you start to read and find that certain letters are mistaken for others. Sometimes they are egregious errors, other times they are a series of small ones that are cumulatively annoying. But thanks for letting me know, I shall check it out.  :)

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 28, 2015, 05:34:22 AM
I can't think of a single book that I have got from there that hasn't been almost totally unreadable. The scanning is a joke, and they obviously never go back and check what it all looks like. I know that e-books almost always have a higher than usual number of misprints, but they almost turn it into an art form. Maybe this one is better.
They use a type of software called OCR to turn it into text. The quality is only as good as the quality of the ink on the page. When reading old books, things like "e" and "c" there can be errors. Or "l" and "1". Certain characters, such as logical symbols or math equations, are not handled well unless you buy expensive OCR software.

SredniVashtar

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on November 28, 2015, 08:57:07 AM
They use a type of software called OCR to turn it into text. The quality is only as good as the quality of the ink on the page. When reading old books, things like "e" and "c" there can be errors. Or "l" and "1". Certain characters, such as logical symbols or math equations, are not handled well unless you buy expensive OCR software.

I think they have trouble distinguishing the letters "cl" together as well, and think it is a "d". In fairness, I have just had a look at the link to this one, and as far as I can tell it seems perfect, which is very surprising. Perhaps they have got a more reliable system now. There used to be lots of yellowed old volumes that were barely legible for a number of pages. You'd think you'd stumbled upon a book that you had wanted to read for ages and you get pages of gibberish instead.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 28, 2015, 09:03:15 AM
I think they have trouble distinguishing the letters "cl" together as well, and think it is a "d". In fairness, I have just had a look at the link to this one, and as far as I can tell it seems perfect, which is very surprising. Perhaps they have got a more reliable system now. There used to be lots of yellowed old volumes that were barely legible for a number of pages. You'd think you'd stumbled upon a book that you had wanted to read for ages and you get pages of gibberish instead.

That is a new book (2013) and posting it on the Internet Archive was paid for by a donation from a charitable organization.
The majority of books on there are from pre-1921 published books (no longer protected by copyright), so a copy of Peter Pan from 1911 is going to have all the errors of a 1911 printing press (including uneven letters, letters that are pushed together, ink blots and stains).

This is actually a major computational challenge as researchers are trying to use OCR to decipher things like genealogy records and old newspapers from the 1900s and running into similar problems.

Meister_000

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 28, 2015, 08:49:20 AM
I appreciate the link, by the way, but it has been my experience that something goes wrong in the formatting - particularly when you try to read them in anything other than PDF. It's not something that you can easily tell at a glance - you start to read and find that certain letters are mistaken for others. Sometimes they are egregious errors, other times they are a series of small ones that are cumulatively annoying. But thanks for letting me know, I shall check it out.  :)

These appear to be factory issue, not in-house scan jobs. Cambridge seems to be revising their electronic editions every 3 or 4 years so maybe they don't give a shit about older eds. Who knows. E-Books are for children as far as I'm concerned. If there's high quality pdf suitable for printing then the lazer gets fired up and we get hard copy as needed. Only way to go -- short of bound prints.


Quote from: Meister_000 on November 28, 2015, 09:22:54 AM
E-Books are for children as far as I'm concerned. If there's high quality pdf suitable for printing then the lazer gets fired up and we get hard copy as needed. Only way to go -- short of bound prints.

I disagree. Physical books take up an enormous amount of space. Also, I like being able to enlarge the text on something I am reading.

Meister_000

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on November 28, 2015, 09:26:06 AM
I disagree. Physical books take up an enormous amount of space. Also, I like being able to enlarge the text on something I am reading.

I'm talking about books for study, not throw away novels and the like. I mark the hell out of my study books, always.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 28, 2015, 09:03:15 AM
I think they have trouble distinguishing the letters "cl" together as well, and think it is a "d". In fairness, I have just had a look at the link to this one, and as far as I can tell it seems perfect, which is very surprising. Perhaps they have got a more reliable system now. There used to be lots of yellowed old volumes that were barely legible for a number of pages. You'd think you'd stumbled upon a book that you had wanted to read for ages and you get pages of gibberish instead.

Here is an example. This is the Old Bailey Court Proceedings from 1775. Archivists would like to turn this into a searchable text file. This is the results with some widely-used OCR technology. (Notice "prisoner" is spelled "prifoner" in 1775). Now that I look at it, the google OCR is actually perfect Scottish English.


SredniVashtar

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on November 28, 2015, 09:56:52 AM
Here is an example. This is the Old Bailey Court Proceedings from 1775. Archivists would like to turn this into a searchable text file. This is the results with some widely-used OCR technology. (Notice "prisoner" is spelled "prifoner" in 1775). Now that I look at it, the google OCR is actually perfect Scottish English.

I think that's Scottish English some time during Hogmanay! You'd need some pretty intuitive software to penetrate that thicket. Probably the only (incredibly labourious) alternative would be to have people type them out instead. People do do that (or used to) on Project Gutenberg with text files, but I don't know whether that is a serious option to pursue these days.

I don't know when the letter s stopped being spelled with an f but I am glad they don't do it any more, it's very annoying.

VtaGeezer

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on November 28, 2015, 09:56:52 AM
...(Notice "prisoner" is spelled "prifoner" in 1775)...
It's very common to see the letter "f" used as "s" in English printed material from that era, including American. Seems the  lower case "f" and "s" were for the reader to discern, e.g. as with hard or soft "c". The distinct "s" letter appeared as the std sometime in the early 19th Cent.

Meister_000

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 28, 2015, 10:05:01 AM

I don't know when the letter s stopped being spelled with an f but I am glad they don't do it any more, it's very annoying.

Surprisingly, it lasted well into the 19th cent in English printing. Wiki has a side by side to two editions of Encyclopedia Britannica, 1817, and 1823.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s

"5th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1817, top, compared to the 6th edition of 1823; the only change (aside from the elimination of the ct ligature, as in "attraction") was the removal of the long s from the font."

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/5th6thEdition.jpeg/640px-5th6thEdition.jpeg

paladin1991

Quote from: SredniVashtar on November 25, 2015, 05:36:30 PM
You've got to love a place where people can get feisty about different versions of creation myths. And Mithraism, of all things!

- "Tertullian mentioned Mithraism in terms that suggested it was a serious rival to Christianity".
- "Well, you can tell your friend Tertullian he's a dumbass! Screw him and SCREW YOU!!".

Next we'll be having fist fights about the Categorical Imperative.
Or the Prime Directive


paladin1991

Quote from: Meister_000 on November 28, 2015, 05:02:17 AM
The Internet Archive currently has for free download
The complete 6 Vol set of the 2011 edition (pdf) of
The New Cambridge History of Islam

https://archive.org/details/TheNewCambridgeHistoryOfIslamVolume1

Click the large italic "i" icon at the upper right corner of page for each of the six files and choose desired format: pdf, epub, etc.

Earlier editions of Cambridge Histories (often superior to the newest) are locatable.
Cliff Notes?

Meister_000

Quote from: paladin1991 on November 28, 2015, 12:48:36 PM
Cliff Notes?

NCHI Cliff Notes:
- Vol 1.  Muhammadism Arrives
- Vol 2.  Overstays its Welcome
- Vol 3.  More of Same
- Vol 4.  Still Here
- Vol 5.  Can't take a Hint
- Vol 6.  ok, This is Getting Old
:)

albrecht

Quote from: Meister_000 on November 29, 2015, 01:51:22 AM
NCHI Cliff Notes:
- Vol 1.  Muhammadism Arrives
- Vol 2.  Overstays its Welcome
- Vol 3.  More of Same
- Vol 4.  Still Here
- Vol 5.  Can't take a Hint
- Vol 6.  ok, This is Getting Old
:)
Hahaha. THAT is a nice summary.  ;D ;D ;D

Btw, I only have an old kindle (much prefer real paper) but sometimes for convenience get ebooks. So far I've never had an ebook in pdf format work well on the kindle (even modern English books.) Every so often you find an interesting book in pdf and I've been able to convert to mobi via free software and it works out ok. (Still have issues with characters if original scans were from older English, foreign languages, different/older fonts, etc. I think to do a good, readable xfer from old books is too have a real translator/scanner person, page by page, and not AI (yet.)) Heaven forbid if they use 'google translate' on foreign stuff!)

Quote from: albrecht on November 29, 2015, 06:19:35 PM
Hahaha. THAT is a nice summary.  ;D ;D ;D

Btw, I only have an old kindle (much prefer real paper) but sometimes for convenience get ebooks. So far I've never had an ebook in pdf format work well on the kindle (even modern English books.) Every so often you find an interesting book in pdf and I've been able to convert to mobi via free software and it works out ok. (Still have issues with characters if original scans were from older English, foreign languages, different/older fonts, etc. I think to do a good, readable xfer from old books is too have a real translator/scanner person, page by page, and not AI (yet.)) Heaven forbid if they use 'google translate' on foreign stuff!)
============================================
'Allo!
With you am i yet.
Not this topic vis:la belle france and her travails.
However,i will give out an general comment.
The incredible techs at the great biblotheque nationale have built several super-computers that interpret very odd type and odder syntax.
If any-one looks at the search and find book gateway that ends in the "EU"suffix,there is an 'button'that recently appears at one's open scan and asks if you wish to transfer your display to an beta of a new front-end.
This new display includes an un-restricted download function for an "printable document file"that doesn't have digital rights control enabled or apparent water-marking that limits its'functionality.
If you use the EU portal,french ocr is one thousand times more accurate,allowing select targeted word-only or phrase searches in many languages besides french,through what must be billions of physicly scanned books all over france and its francophone colonys,benelux,quebeqois,et.al.
I've not added the link,it should be easy to find by an simple guess and francoise spelling.
So much for the "Gurgle Uber Alles"chauvenistes!!
B_B"
PS:No Logo,Sorry!
['7VF']


paladin1991

Quote from: Meister_000 on November 29, 2015, 01:51:22 AM
NCHI Cliff Notes:
- Vol 1.  Muhammadism Arrives
- Vol 2.  Overstays its Welcome
- Vol 3.  More of Same
- Vol 4.  Still Here
- Vol 5.  Can't take a Hint
- Vol 6.  ok, This is Getting Old
:)
;D

Meister_000

Quote from: albrecht link=topic=9018.msg608314#msg608314 date=144 :D8842775
Hahaha. THAT is a nice summary.  ;D ;D ;D

Btw, I only have an old kindle (much prefer real paper) but sometimes for convenience get ebooks. So far I've never had an ebook in pdf format work well on the kindle (even modern English books.) Every so often you find an interesting book in pdf and I've been able to convert to mobi via free software and it works out ok. (Still have issues with characters if original scans were from older English, foreign languages, different/older fonts, etc. I think to do a good, readable xfer from old books is too have a real translator/scanner person, page by page, and not AI (yet.)) Heaven forbid if they use 'google translate' on foreign stuff!)

Thanks -- it cracked _me_ up writing it.  :D

Ya, maybe I was too rough on E-books n-stuff. I have a Samsung 8"  Tab 4 that I use on occaision (even loaded it with a bunch of reading matter yesterday), but generally speaking I hate them for reading, even casual/pleasure reading. Stoking my attitude towards them is schools proposing to do away with real books entirely and use only electronic textbooks -- which is just freeking rediculous to me, and also tells me that whoever is making these decisions has very little first-hand experience _using_ real books themselves. And ya, OCR requires full-time baby-sitter checking/correcting output . Voice-to-Text though is getting pretty good (e.g. Google's Android product) but that's instantainious/simaltainious send/return to/from their supercomputers in-the-sky rather than local sw processing.

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