I only recently found out that the proofreading activity for old, out-of-copyright works intended for Project Gutenberg was an organised, distributed activity that for the past few years has been carried out (by volunteers) using the web app set up at PGDP. Out of curiosity I signed up, and over the last few weeks have done a couple hundred pages of 'P1' level proofreading (which basically amounts to correcting OCR errors before they're passed on to 'P2' for another pass to catch any that were missed).
There are so many projects on the go at any one time that I've found it very easy to choose those that I think look interesting. Since you end up taking pages out of a pool while other people are often doing the same, you aren't guaranteed consecutive pages, so the process doesn't always lend itself to following the narrative of a book (proofreaders are primarily there to correct errors, after all). But reading sections is still quite interesting, and I've resolved to read a couple of books for real when they show up on Gutenberg in a few months, fully proofread and formatted and complete.
After a tutorial project, the first project I decided to work on was the account of Captain Robert Fitzroy, Charles Darwin's ship's captain. The sections of the book I was proofreading were accounts of voyages before Darwin had joined the crew, but were no less interesting for it. At one point I felt a pang of recognition and, after some searching, realised that I was proofreading the original accounts of the capture of these Patagonian natives, which I had read about in the linked BBC article a couple of months before.
I've now moved on to Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, a new project added to the site yesterday to commemorate Franklin's 300th birthday (and already almost fully P1-proofread). Franklin was a smart man of many talents (and by today's standards, a total geek, in the most complimentary sense of the word) and his autobiography is fascinating throughout -- sometimes so much so that I forget I'm supposed to be correcting errors -- but my favourite passage so far is this one where the young Franklin struggles with his vegetarianism:
I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion I consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
215 years dead and his personality still oozes off the page and inhabits the room. Amazing.
You're not the best at proof reading. There's loads of e's missing from that paragraph for a start.
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The link Raggs had was also in Newsmax yesterday. As far as I know it is true. I myself cant figure out how they got away with it. There was also a post above from chuck b commenting on the vote just because the color of skin. Very true. I also still believe that if we are lucky enough to vote Obama out, well see the likes of L.A. after Rodney King. I really hope Im wrong on this but regardless the outcome, weve gotta get him and others out of there.
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I also agree with jaimie and Glenn. Actually, I think this book was an absolute wastenone of the characters were developedeven those of the flock. I became uninterested in their plight, and the few snippets of the relationship between Max and Fang were let downs.The new powers were completely irrelevant, and several things were left unsolved (i.e. the pizza incident for those who have read it, and the Voice). By the end of the book, I even felt tired of hearing Maxs normally humorous thoughts. It seemed like her point of view became tainted with Well, I lead the flock so She no longer had some sort of flaw, and I the reader was unable to relate with Max.Perhaps the Global Warming would have made a nice, subtle undercurrent. But it was overly blatant and cheesy, and the book did not fit at all. Mr. Patterson took us from Antarctica, to Miami, to the White House. Suddenly, a girl who wasnt even sure of Global Warming started preaching to the world about it? Ridiculous.[edited to delete rudeness].Heres to hoping for a fifth book [which is better].
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