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  • #31
    A search on my second first name gave this as first result:

    "The Sexual Labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol"
    Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.-Isaiah 41:10
    I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made - Psalms 139.14a
    Also active on WePlayCiv.

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    • #32
      689 hits on my surname. Mostly botanical references...


      Well, I kinda like to vegetate.
      RIAA sucks
      The Optimistas
      I'm a political cartoonist

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      • #33
        Do they really hire people to scan these?

        I thought it'd be automated...
        "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
        Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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        • #34
          Kinda hard to combine a page-turning machine with a scanner.
          "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master" - Commissioner Pravin Lal.

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          • #35
            I don't think it is.
            "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
            Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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            • #36
              Lots of mechanical parts. You have to lift the book, use an appendage delicate enough to flip one page, and then lower the book again.

              This will be slower than having a human do that and will require a lot of maintenance, not to mention initial R&D. Minimum wage workers are faster and cheaper.
              "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master" - Commissioner Pravin Lal.

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              • #37
                I don't think it requires that much mechanical parts.

                Look at how cars are produced, they're far more complex than a page-flipping-scanning device would need t obe.
                "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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                • #38
                  The problem is getting the robot to reliably flip one page at a time (sometimes problematic for Human hands) without tearing any pages (again, Human hands sometimes mess up). I'd sooner trust a person over a robot with a book. There are robotics being developed that are touch sensitive, but that's just it: They're being developed; they aren't available yet, certainly not for Google to utilize in this project.
                  The cake is NOT a lie. It's so delicious and moist.

                  The Weighted Companion Cube is cheating on you, that slut.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Asher
                    I don't think it requires that much mechanical parts.

                    Look at how cars are produced, they're far more complex than a page-flipping-scanning device would need t obe.
                    There's a huge amount of precision and error-checking and correcting involved in turning a page. As togglecaps said, in many circumstances it will take a human quite a few tries.

                    At some point it becomes cheaper to hire people to do it than to build a machine with those kinds of abilities.

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                    • #40
                      An update... In about a half year, Google Books appears to have about tripled its stacks. At the end of August '06, 198 books were available for full download including my last name. Now, there are 642.

                      Probably a lot more to come, given the deal with the Bavarian State Library...

                      Google Books has a new cool feature. It gives a map, with pins at all of the locations mentioned in the book.

                      Google Book Search wins backing of German library

                      Reuters
                      Wednesday, March 7, 2007; 12:42 PM

                      BERLIN (Reuters) - The Bavarian State Library, one of the biggest libraries in the German-speaking world, has agreed to participate in Google Inc.'s project to scan books from the world's great collections.

                      The Munich-based library, which contains around nine million volumes in total, is to make about one million books available to the Google Book Search, ranging from classics by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm.

                      A spokesman for the library said a large share of the books due to be scanned were German, although the sample also includes many in Italian, French, Spanish, Latin and English.

                      Stefan Keuchel, a spokesman for Google Germany, said on Wednesday some books will be available for download once they go online, adding that this should occur "in the next few years."

                      "This is a very important step for us, particularly in view of the criticism that's been leveled at the project," he said.

                      "And it's pleasing not just for us, but also for Google users, particularly in the German-speaking world, because the deal means that we'll be able to significantly raise the number of German books in the Google Book Search," Keuchel added.

                      All the items to be included are works for which the copyright has expired. In Germany, the law currently protects books for 70 years after the author's death.

                      Other participants in Google's project include the Complutense University of Madrid, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the National Library of Catalonia, a number of U.S. universities and the New York Public Library.

                      Google is also cooperating with almost 20 local publishing houses for the newly launched Chinese version of its book search service, books.google.cn, spokeswoman Jin Cui said.

                      The drive to digitize major libraries was nearly derailed when authors' and publishers' groups sued Google in 2005 to block scanning of copyrighted library books, arguing that the effort might tempt consumers to stop buying printed works.

                      Google argues that it is creating the electronic equivalent of a library card catalog for copyrighted works and that the library project only plans to publish the full texts of out-of-copyright books in the public domain.

                      Among the prominent critics of the Google Book Search has been Microsoft Corp.

                      (Additional reporting by Sophie Taylor in Shanghai)
                      Last edited by DanS; March 7, 2007, 14:04.
                      I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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                      • #41
                        Only 26500

                        books with chang

                        I would have expected more. I guess its because the thing is english-centric.
                        “It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.”

                        ― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

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                        • #42
                          43 books listed under "Selseth," mostly hydraulic engineering stuff.

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                          • #43
                            1780600 hits on my last name. But then it helps when they name a country after you...

                            -Arrian
                            grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!

                            The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.

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                            • #44
                              Djibouti?
                              I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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                              • #45
                                No. The Land of Hope and Glory.

                                -Arrian
                                grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!

                                The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.

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