It would help me a lot to have B:CP as an ebook or PDF. Is it perchance
available in such a form? If not, has anyone knowledge about how to get
that done?
Worst case, I'd be happy to join in a project to scan it and convert it.
Same for other PCT books and articles.
Ted
Hi, Ted,
Don’t be a cheapskate. My books (and other PCT books) are available from
barnesandnoble.com, Amazon.com, or (the preferred one)
http://stores.ebay.com/Captain-Benchmarks-Bookstore-Annex
Click on Perceptual Control Theory in panel at left to see seven books
available.
I’m not giving my publications away free yet!
Best.
Bill
Revenue can be had from e-books. He may be talking about convenience, searchability, etc.
/B
From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet) [mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU] On Behalf Of Bill Powers
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 7:36 PM
To:
CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
Subject: Re: Behavior: The Control of Perception
Hi, Ted,
Don’t be a cheapskate. My books (and other PCT books) are available from barnesandnoble.com, Amazon.com, or (the preferred one)
http://stores.ebay.com/Captain-Benchmarks-Bookstore-Annex
Click on Perceptual Control Theory in panel at left to see seven books available.
I’m not giving my publications away free yet!
Best.
Bill
eBook
editions of books are sold just like audio editions and paperback editions and
hardcover editions. You could go on living high off the royalties on your
books .
I
already own most of your books in print form.
The
indexes of your books, when they exist at all, are lousy.
eBook
or other electronic editions, on the other hand, are searchable, so when
I want to see what you have to say about some topic I can look it up instead of
spending hours scanning possible chapters.
Regards,
Ted
From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU] On Behalf
Of Bill Powers
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008
8:36 PM
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
Subject: Re: Behavior: The Control
of Perception
Hi, Ted,
Don’t be a cheapskate. My books (and other PCT books) are available from
barnesandnoble.com, Amazon.com, or (the preferred one)
http://stores.ebay.com/Captain-Benchmarks-Bookstore-Annex
Click on Perceptual Control Theory in panel at left to see seven books
available.
I’m not giving my publications away free yet!
Best.
Bill
[From Bill Powers (2008.01.17.0721)]
Ted Cloak (2008.01.17) –
OK, OK, sorry. Somewhat. The crack about living high off royalties, I
assume, was a joke. The average price of an ebook, I just read somewhere,
is $10. At that rate I could live high for about one week a year. Well,
maybe more books would sell, so make that two weeks.
I think Dag Forssell would be on your side (and Bruce Nevin’s), so I
won’t utterly reject the idea, but it’s not on the front burner right
now. If the new book catches on, maybe it would be appropriate to convert
the old ones. I’ll think about it.
Alice is considering making the new book a publish-on-demand production,
partly at the suggestion of Dag. But it’s still going to be relatively
expensive with lots of color figures (screen shots). I will try to
produce a better index.
Best,
Bill P.
At 10:50 PM 1/16/2008 -0700, you wrote:
eBook editions of books are sold just like audio
editions and paperback editions and hardcover editions. You could
go on living high off the royalties on your books .
I already own most of your books in print
form.
The indexes of your books, when they exist at all,
are lousy.
eBook or other electronic editions, on the other
hand, are searchable, so when I want to see what you have to say
about some topic I can look it up instead of spending hours scanning
possible chapters.Regards,
Ted
[From Dag Forssell (2008.01.17.1220)]
Bill Powers
(2008.01.17.0721)]
I think Dag Forssell would be on
your side (and Bruce Nevin’s), so I won’t utterly reject the idea, but
it’s not on the front burner right now. If the new book catches on, maybe
it would be appropriate to convert the old ones. I’ll think about
it.Alice is considering making the new book a publish-on-demand production,
partly at the suggestion of Dag. But it’s still going to be relatively
expensive with lots of color figures (screen shots). I will try to
produce a better index.
No, I am not on Ted’s side given my understanding at the moment. An
e-book means a pdf file, though Amazon just introduced an system I am not
yet familiar with. For a person in an academic setting especially, but
otherwise as well, this means that while the pdf file is purchased once
(price can be much more than $10), it can be passed on indefinitely to
students, colleagues etc. Since Bill and his publisher, as well as I and
my authors, have put a huge amount of both work and money into creating
and making the books on PCT available, I would be careful about inviting
massive theft of intellectual property. If your work appeals to legions
of people who are not connected and therefore unlikely to pass your work
around, selling pdf files may make more sense.
In coming months I will look into Google books to see if I should submit
my titles there and to what extent that would make them searchable and
readable as an inducement to purchasing the book itself. At the moment I
do not know much about Google books.
If you want people to pass a pdf file around, you can either give it away
to begin with or sell your work as a pdf file for a fair price.
As far as a lousy index, I recall the tale of Jim Soldani who was exposed
to B:CP in the early 80s. He read the book five times before he felt he
had done due diligence, took a deep breath and called Bill Powers.
Over the years on CSGnet, we have seen any number of people who read a
page or two and feel justified to complain about this or that, arguing
endlessly from their religious backgrounds or other prior, firmly
entrenched convictions.
I don’t think that worry about an index should substitute for expecting
people to read the book from cover to cover several times.
Best, Dag
[From Rick Marken (960714.1420)]
Hans Blom (960712) --
Well, let me try again. I seem not able to make myself clear.
Have you considered the possibility that you are making yourself
perfectly clear?
Hans Blom (960712) --
I kind of like well-phrased withering sarcasm, but not if it is based
on misunderstandings and attacks a straw man. Well-phrased it was.
Straw man, too. Remember that you said it can't be done? I said it
can. Bill said it's different. I agree with that.
When I said that threading a needle blindfolded can't be done, I meant
that it can't be done as needle threading is normally done; in a reasonable
amount of time with assurance of success. Give a few hours in the
dark I'm sure I could thread a needle; but after a few billion years a
monkey at a typewrite could write the preface to B:CP too. Wouldn't it
be a bit gratuitous for me to have said that a monkey at a typewriter
_could_ write the preface to B:CP if you had said it couldn't?
There was no straw man in Bill's comments. If you actually agreed that
threading a needle blindfolded is done in a completely different way
compared to threading it with eyes open, then you would have objected
strongly when Bill said (sarcastically).:
So Hans, you are absolutely right. There is no difference between
threading a needle with your eyes open and threading it with your eyes
closed.
But you responded to the post as though Bill were actually agreeing with
you. Bill (and I) assumed (correctly, I believe, given your reply to Bill's
sarcasm) that you were saying that people _can_ thread needles blindfolded
because they produce a threaded needle by generating outputs open loop
based on a model of the environmental circumstances in which threading
takes place. This assumption was confirmed even more strongly when
you failed to protest Bill's most sarcastic comment of all:
The model that is used by the control system simply generates
the same outputs it normally generates, and since they produce needle-
threading movements when your eyes are open, they also produce needle-
threading movements when your eyes are closed.
Both Bill and I think you actually believe this (and since you didn't
see this as a joke it seems likely that you do believe it) because you
are always talking about how the model-based controller is the best
model of ordinary behavior because people don't really need to rely
on their perceptions in order to control. In other words, you continue
to argue for a model-based control of output model of behavior as though
there were tons of evidence for such a model. In fact, there is not a speck
of evidence for such a model; the only thing going for the model-based
control model is that many conventional control engineers, roboticists and
psychologists believe in it.
Bill's point in the post about Mary's ability to thread the needles with
eyes closed was that there is, in fact, no evidence _at all_ that people
generate the same outputs in order to produce the same result blindfolded
versus with eyes open. When Bill said "the model that is used by the
control system simply generates the same outputs it normally generates"
he was being sarcastic -- big time!
In fact, what Mary's data show is that people have to learn to control
different perceptions when the perceptions that are usually controlled
are no longer available. Blind people can thread needles because they
know how to control kinesthetic and touch sensations properly in
order to produce the objective result "threaded needle". Mary's data was
not evidence of "model based" control; in fact, it was a solid rejection
of model based control.
The needle threading data (blindfolded and not blindfolded) is another
powerful demonstration that behavior (the production of desired results
like threaded needles) is the control of perception.
Best
Rick
[Hans Blom, 960715]
(Rick Marken (960714.1420))
When I said that threading a needle blindfolded can't be done, I meant
that it can't be done as needle threading is normally done; ...
If that is what you meant, I fully agree with you. Then everything
was just one big misunderstanding. Now, can we be friends again?
Greetings,
Hans