8 ms·

This is sort of like asking why we need to bother to produce a careful English translation of the works of Stanislaw Lem. Why not just paste the Polish editions

This is sort of like asking why we need to bother to produce a careful English translation of the works of Stanislaw Lem. Why not just paste the Polish editions of all of his works into a big spreadsheet, one word per row, then sort it alphabetically by word, feed it through Google's translation bot, and upload the long list of words to Bittorrent? Then the world can have all the words Lem ever wrote! All we'll be missing is their order. What's wrong with this project? Everything. It's not going to serve anyone (except, perhaps, a very tiny number of Polish linguists), it's a terrible insult to Lem, it's a terrible insult to Lem's audience, and it reflects very badly on the intelligence or taste of the person who carried out the plan (i.e., me). My understanding is that the plans for the Analytical Engine resemble any other set of unrealized preliminary plans: They're incomplete, they're out of order, they don't make great internal sense on the surface (because Babbage and his collaborators didn't bother to rewrite all the old notes every time they had a new idea), they use archaic terms and convoluted expressions for concepts that are now simple (they weren't simple concepts when they were first being conceived, a century before they were realized in practice), and therefore they aren't as impressive as they could be if, say, a bright and motivated historian spent some time piecing them together first. But, of course, I'm no expert on the Analytical Engine; I'm just guessing based on a few rumors I've overheard. If only I could pull an actual expert out from behind this nearby curtain! [cue] [god I love the internet]

jgrahamc 15y ago
Also, Babbage invented his own notation for describing the movement and interaction of cogs, levers etc. inside the machine. He used this notation to augment the static plans to describe the motion. He also constantly refined the notation. What he left behind were hundreds of nice plans of the Analytical Engine all of which are incomplete. Plus he left his notebooks. Thousands and thousands of pages of jottings, sketches, and thoughts. Interpreting all that is going to be a lot of work.
0x12 15y ago
They claim they don't have the resources to make them available to the public. You are answering a completely different question. They seem to be saying they don't have the funds and/or infrastructure, not that they don't want to make them available. (unless the parent post has been edited)
Jun8 15y ago
I don't see how your analogy applies. There are, of course, many examples of digitized versions of manuscripts online, some with and some without lengthy explanations. Most of these manuscripts require at least as much efforts as Babbage's plans to understand. Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester is the first example that comes to mind as a popular example. Other examples may be found here (http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/08/12/digital-humanities-7-important-digitization-projects/ http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/08/12/digital-hu...). I have no expertise on Babbage whatsoever; yet I would have liked to peruse images of these plans just for the sheer beauty and importance of them. You can't do that with Polish versions of Lem's text.

jgrahamc 15y ago

Also, Babbage invented his own notation for describing the movement and interaction of cogs, levers etc. inside the machine. He used this notation to augment the static plans to describe the motion. He also constantly refined the notation. What he left behind were hundreds of nice plans of the Analytical Engine all of which are incomplete. Plus he left his notebooks. Thousands and thousands of pages of jottings, sketches, and thoughts. Interpreting all that is going to be a lot of work.

0x12 15y ago

They claim they don't have the resources to make them available to the public. You are answering a completely different question. They seem to be saying they don't have the funds and/or infrastructure, not that they don't want to make them available. (unless the parent post has been edited)

Jun8 15y ago

I don't see how your analogy applies. There are, of course, many examples of digitized versions of manuscripts online, some with and some without lengthy explanations. Most of these manuscripts require at least as much efforts as Babbage's plans to understand. Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester is the first example that comes to mind as a popular example. Other examples may be found here (http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/08/12/digital-humanities-7-important-digitization-projects/ http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/08/12/digital-hu...). I have no expertise on Babbage whatsoever; yet I would have liked to peruse images of these plans just for the sheer beauty and importance of them. You can't do that with Polish versions of Lem's text.