jollyreaper wrote and included with a post:

Does this mean that we can expect to see unending series of cash-in sequels, like Spiderman 3, Fantastic Four 3, Iron Man 2, X-Men 4, etc?!? Oh wait...

It might be morbidly amusing to see how Disney retcons and bowlderizes some of the more questionable characters. G-rated Marvel Zombies? Lobo?

Fortunately, Lobo is a DC character (although he was vastly toned down during his appearances in the Animated DCU, including no mention of his origin).

kregg wrote:

It was around 6 months ago, but I remember that the pictures didn't show up, contents needed to be recreated, tables were an issue. Also I tried writing a resume and the formatting wasn't what it looked like in OO compared to Word.

I've found this to be a problem with MS-Word even with short documents. I used to have to work with a special type of one-page document. The problem I ran into was that the document (in MS-Word format) that I received via e-mail looked different on my computer than it did on the originating computer. These documents had to have absolutely no changes from the original, even a single slightly different space between two words was not allowed.

At that time sending a PDF back and forth was not an option, so our only option was to have the sender FAX the document to us so we had an exact copy of the document, and then get it approved. We would FAX changes to them, and they would FAX us an updated version. Once it was approved, the sender would provide use with a hard copy of the original document for processing.

kregg wrote:

Yes, OO can save in *.doc format. If you have ever tried it with something like a 100 page file with tables, indexes and pictures you will know that it is a waste of time. Word is the only option and thus the problem.

What specific problems came up when saving a file as described above in the .doc format using OpenOffice.org?

Much of the discussion in this thread focuses on how well/badly the new author will emulate Douglas Adams. What if, rather than that, the new author writes a story in his own distinctive style but set in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy universe? Instead of trying to emulate the past, the new author focuses on writing an entertaining book.

The passage to the new author could even be treated as a point of humor in the new novel (the dark humor is suitable to a Hitchhiker's book). Much like in the movie "Monty Python And The Whole Grail" when the knights survive a monster's attack when the monster disappears because the animator suddenly dies.

As a comic book reader, changing writers is a matter of course for me, and sometimes it can lead to terrific stories. As an example, I've enjoyed Green Lantern over the years and there have been some good stories, but when Geoff Johns took over the series he wrote (and is writing) the best Green Lantern stories I've ever read, and has introduced concepts that taken the series in very different direction. This includes the revelation that there are eight different lantern colors, each linked to a different emotional state, which has lead to a massive war between the different lantern corps.

Veggiesama wrote and included the following with a post:

For me, the funniest parts of the books are the excerpts from the Guide (especially the part about how the Babel Fish has been used for the non-existence of God). If they had added just a couple of minutes to put those into the movie, I think I would've liked it much, much more.

While I agree with you, the producers believed the Guide segments were slowing down the narrative pace, especially in the beginning where lots of Guide segments were used. There's only so much you can put in 1.5 to 2 hours of film and expect a brisk, action-packed story (in contrast to the whimsical, sometimes meandering pace of the book). Two different mediums, two different beasts, and two different presentation philosophies of the same story.

Anyway, they actually produced (most of) the Babel fish segment for the DVD release, seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ctoT7ezTE

I think the movie and book being two different mediums is the key. With a movie, you only have a limited amount of time to tell the story. Even with the amount of time available in the "Lord Of The Rings" series (the DVD versions I have runs a total of slightly more than 9.25 hours for the three movies) there were still things from the book that were left out of the movie.

It is the same thing with comic books. Even a relatively short story in comic book form can become extremely long in another form. An example is the DC Comics' series "Infinite Crisis." As a comic book it was a total of six regular issues and one longer issue, and in novel form it is 371 pages. As a full-cast audiobook, "Infinite Crisis" is approximately 13 hours long, and it took that much time to get all of the story into the audiobook.

prockcore wrote:

I'm not sure why the Star Wars Universe, would use the time it takes for the Earth to orbit our Sun as a standard measurement of time. We have no idea how long a year is for them. Could be 2 hours.

It would depend on what it is based on.

• Possiblity One: It is an already established measure based on a government edict. Since there are so many different planets with years and days that are of different lengths, the Republic could have just said that the standard universal year is this length of time (based on some unchanging universal standard such as the vibration of a quartz crystal).
• Possibility Two: The official standard year is based on Coresant itself (if it orbits a star). How long that year is would depend on the size of the planet (the more massive the planet, the longer its year). It is much like in our star system, Mercury's year is much shorter than ours.

zakur wrote (and included with a post):

Japanese blades often did not have a tsuba (hand guard)

Nonsense. A tsuba is an integral part of a practical katana. Only decorative or ceremonial long blades occasionally (e.g. shirisaya) lacked them. The tsuba didn't just protect the wielder from an opponent's blade, it also prevented the wielder's hand from sliding onto the blade during thrusts. Fighting with a tsuba-less sword would be folly.

That clears up a point of confusion for me. In the series "Bleach" the other Soul Reapers find Ichigo Kurusaki's sword surprising because of its size (it's almost as long as he is tall) and that it doesn't have a handguard (as far as I know his is the only sword without one).

BTW, in "Bleach" the sword is called a zanpakto. Its size reflects the power of the soul reaper who wields it. Ichigo's zanpakto (in its normal state) is the largest one that I've seen.

Hurricane78 wrote:

Problem is: When they stop working, it rips you into pieces. ;)

True. My opinion on the way Star Trek's gravity system works (based on what we've seen) is that the system is fine as long as everything goes as planned (the system perfectly handles the gravity to ensure there isn't even a sensation of moment). However, it is when anything unexpected (like a shot from an enemy ship) happens that's when the gravity system lags in compensating for the change in momentum. However, it is still fast enough to minimize the danger to the crew (so they get a non-lethal jolt instead of going splat against the wall).

10101001 10101001 wrote as part of a post:

In a similar vein, up until Windows 95, there were various schemes to overcome the 8.3 limitation of DOS filenames. Most used the idea of keeping a separate file (descript.ion for example) containing a short and long filename and merging them in memory with the directory listing for long filename supporting programs. Microsoft decided to do something similar, except they stored the long file names directly within the directory listing--ie, the took two separate streams of information and made them one.

In a related note, this sounds similar to the way that Profession Write used to store its document information. It would automatically create an extra file in the directory that contained document information on all of the Professional Write documents in the directory, including the long document name.

Returning to the topic of the article, I request a clarification. I've read the original article in the original thread and I'm unsure of exactly the issue is. From that I read, it seems like the issue isn't that the document is saved in many pieces (which the OpenDocument format does). Rather, it seems like the issue is that MS Word can create custom made XML tags on its own and that is what the issue is. If that is the case, would this have an affect on the OpenDocument format? Thanks in advance for the clarification.

sznupi wrote:

Or built in LaTeX for extra points? (even e-book readers should be fast enough nowadays for it...)

For me, it isn't important which format is chosen as long as: (1) it renders consistently (as an example, if I choose a font that is supported by the reader, it should reliably render on my reader in that font), and (2) formatting and editing tools are commonly available for users to make their own e-books.

Using the Palm Reader format as an example, Palm provides a guide on how to markup your text files as e-books using a text editor (the markup language is similar to HTML and can be picked up in a few minutes), a free program that allows you to convert the formatted text files into e-books, and a paid program that allows you to convert text, RTF, and HTML files into its markup language, and convert them into e-books. It makes it very easy to create and consistently format your e-books. Based on my own experience, I've found Palm Reader format (.pdb) to be a very good e-book format, and one designed specifically for e-books.

For me, the main advantage of using HTML and RTF as ebook formats is that they are already well established, and if you have a Windows or Mac you already have the tools needed to create and edit these files. I've heard of LaTex, but I'm not sure if it as available and usable for the average user (if I'm wrong please correct me).

jecblackpepper wrote:

But having PDF that has its page size the same size of the screen still defeats one of the major advantages of an ebook. That is, the ability to change font size and re-flow the text accordingly.

I often change font size to fit the conditions in which I'm reading on my Cybook. Typically I use a single font-size that I'm comfortable with, but there are times when I like it to be larger: in dim light when I don't want to strain my eyes reading it; when its on the book stand on my exercise bike and thus further away than I would normally hold it, when I'm on a train and I need to compensate for my hand shaking etc.

I agree that being able to resize the text on the fly is a strong advantage of e-books. With my Sony Reader, even though the text is sized to the screen, I do have the ability to increase the size of the text (it basically just makes the text as large as possible while still fitting the entire page on one screen).

One thing I'd like to see on all e-book readers is the ability to use basic HTML as a format, while using an internal (maintained in the reader) Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to control the formatting of the text. For instance, the user can set the CSS to render paragraphs in Georgia 14pt with 12pt of blank space after the paragraph, while H1 would rendered in Helvetica 18pt, centered, with a page break before the heading.

initdeep wrote:

not all pdf's are scaled to the screen.

if it's created for the sony screen size it works perfectly, and iirc there is a wat to make a pdf that does not have hard page breaks and line breaks but will actually reflow when opened in the sony reader.

I agree that PDFs are terrific on the Sony Reader as long as they are sized for the screen. When it comes for formatting my e-books, I prefer to take care of it myself (setting page size and margins, and having it set the page breaks via styles) rather than making the e-book reader do the work.

When it comes to the new e-book readers, one feature I hope Sony (and other e-book reader makers if they haven't already added the feature) adds to their readers is the ability for the user to choose a typeface when displaying RTF files and plain text files. I prefer to read my e-books in a serif typeface, and often the reader displays them in a sans serif typeface regardless of the actual font in the original document. I searched online for help and wasn't able to find any.

This is the main reason that I choose to format my e-books as PDFs. With RTF and plain text files I couldn't control the typeface the text would be shown in. With RTF files, sometimes they would display in the typeface that I chose, and at other times they would display in a different typeface.

When I was using my Palm T/X as an ebook reader, one of the features I liked about the ereader program was I could choose the specific font that I wanted my ebooks to displayed in. I had the option of several different fonts that I could use.

Falconhell wrote as part of a post:

Pete Townsend of The Who had hearing damage, which occoured due to excessive headphone volume in the recording studio, not live gigs.

I remember hearing in a TV program (I think it was on VH1) that Pete Townsend's hearing was damaged during The Who's performance of "My Generation" on The Smothers Brothers Show. An explosion was set up to go off in the drumset at the end of the appearance, but it set up to be far too powerful. When the explosion went off it damaged Pete Townsend's hearing.

The following is a link to a YouTube video of the performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9-JdubfUCw

I'd add basic HTML to the list of durable formats. Even if there is difficulty in rendering it as a webpage, it can be opened the file in a text editor and the document information (such as the text and formatting) is easy to figure out.

jkiol wrote:

Not only have I forgotten how to write in cursive, I've forgotten how to write in lower case.

I also don't use lower case letters when writing. Rather, my "lower case" letters are simply half the size of my "capital" letters.

This is due to my time in the military, when I was working in jobs that trained me to write in all upper case letters for clarity (errors caused by unclear handwriting were not acceptable). Even when no longer required by the job, I found that I liked the clarity that writing that way provided to both me and people who needed to read my handwriting.

That is the main reason, besides lack of use, that I no longer write in cursive. Even when writing in cursive regularly, at times my own handwriting was difficult for me to read when I tried to read something that I'd written recently. But with things I've written in block letters (as described above), even decades later they are still as legible as computer-printed documents.

Despite the advent of computers, I think there will always be a need for handwriting. But as it has been made clear by the many posts in the thread, one of the main reasons cursive is fading from use is that many people find it much easier to write in block lettering or in upper/lower case lettering. That, and people's bad experience in trying to learn and use cursive have caused them to abandon cursive when no longer required to use it.

I think that, eventually, cursive writing will move into the same realm as calligraphy. It will be an admired artistic skill that (when done well) produces beautiful results.