new lisp book

[ccc31807]

Does anyone have any information about this book?

Lisp (Programming Language) (Paperback)
~ Frederic P. Miller (Editor), Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John
McBrewster (Editor)

# Paperback: 136 pages
# Publisher: Alphascript Publishing (October 22, 2009)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 6130059434
# ISBN-13: 978-6130059439
# Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches

http://www.amazon.com/Lisp-Programming-Language-Frederic-Miller/dp/6130059434/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258573285&sr=8-14

[Kenneth Tilton]

"High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA Articles"?

I love it!

kt

ps. I think you meant "from".

--

http://thelaughingstockatpngs.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Laughingstock/115923141782?ref=nf

[Tamas K Papp]

Search Amazon for the "editors", and you will find about 10^4 books on
diverse subjects, ranging from "Effects of Hurricane Ike in Texas:
Hurricane Ike, Effects of Hurricane Ike in inland North America,
Galveston, Texas, Hurricane Gustav (Paperback)", "Nuclear Power:
Economics of new nuclear power plants, Nuclear energy policy, Nuclear
reactor technology, Nuclear fuel, Nuclear fuel cycle, Uranium market,
Peak uranium, Nuclear engineering (Paperback)", to "Monad (Functional
Programming) (Paperback)". Their Computers and Internet selection [1]
is just delightful.

The publisher's wehsite [2] says that

"Alphascript publishing publishes academic research worldwide - at no
cost to our authors.

Annually, we publish more than 10,000 new titles and are thus one of
the leading publishing houses of academic research. We specialize in
publishing copyleft projects. ..."

Which sounds really weird. Looks like they are just printing
hardcopies of free material, slapping an "individual cover image, ISBN
and barcode" on them.

I have always wanted to own a copy of the iterate manual bound in
buckskin, but I will just have to wait for the "limited hardcover
edition, signed by the author" :-)

Tamas

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_5?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Cn%
3A!1000%2Cp_30%3Aalphascript%2Cn%
3A5&bbn=1000&ie=UTF8&qid=1240315596&rnid=1000

[2] http://www.alphascript-publishing.com/

[Andrew Philpot]

On 2009-11-18, Kenneth Tilton <kent...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ccc31807 wrote:
>> Does anyone have any information about this book?
>>
>> Lisp (Programming Language) (Paperback)
>> ~ Frederic P. Miller (Editor), Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John
>> McBrewster (Editor)

Do not buy. This trio blindly harvests content from Wikipedia, vanity
publishes it, and sells it. Current count exceeds 1000+ titles; what
they lack in quality they make up for in quantity.

http://rufftoon.livejournal.com/59337.html

--
Andrew Philpot
USC Information Sciences Institute
phi...@isi.edu

[Kaz Kylheku]

On 2009-11-18, Andrew Philpot <phi...@isi.edu> wrote:
> On 2009-11-18, Kenneth Tilton <kent...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ccc31807 wrote:
>>> Does anyone have any information about this book?
>>>
>>> Lisp (Programming Language) (Paperback)
>>> ~ Frederic P. Miller (Editor), Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John
>>> McBrewster (Editor)
>
> Do not buy. This trio blindly harvests content from Wikipedia, vanity
> publishes it, and sells it. Current count exceeds 1000+ titles; what
> they lack in quality they make up for in quantity.

What I see as a problem here is also that the Wikipedia article on Lisp
actually generates a 136 page book.

[Bruce Stephens]

Kaz Kylheku <kkyl...@gmail.com> writes:

> On 2009-11-18, Andrew Philpot <phi...@isi.edu> wrote:

[...]

>> Do not buy. This trio blindly harvests content from Wikipedia, vanity
>> publishes it, and sells it. Current count exceeds 1000+ titles; what
>> they lack in quality they make up for in quantity.
>
> What I see as a problem here is also that the Wikipedia article on Lisp
> actually generates a 136 page book.

Large type, double spacing?

Presumably they're also getting text from elsewhere such as wikibooks?

[Rob Warnock]

Andrew Philpot <phi...@isi.edu> wrote:
+---------------

| Kenneth Tilton <kent...@gmail.com> wrote:
| > ccc31807 wrote:
| >> Does anyone have any information about this book?
| >> Lisp (Programming Language) (Paperback)
| >> ~ Frederic P. Miller (Editor), Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John
| >> McBrewster (Editor)
|
| Do not buy. This trio blindly harvests content from Wikipedia, vanity
| publishes it, and sells it. Current count exceeds 1000+ titles; what
| they lack in quality they make up for in quantity.
|
| http://rufftoon.livejournal.com/59337.html

+---------------

Also see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_20#The_Alphascript-Amazon-Wikipedia_book_hoax

-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607

[George Neuner]

On 18 Nov 2009 20:11:10 GMT, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:47:34 -0800, ccc31807 wrote:
>

>> Lisp (Programming Language) (Paperback) ~ Frederic P. Miller (Editor),
>> Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John McBrewster (Editor)

>The publisher's wehsite [2] says that
>
>"Alphascript publishing publishes academic research worldwide - at no
>cost to our authors.
>Annually, we publish more than 10,000 new titles and are thus one of
>the leading publishing houses of academic research. We specialize in
>publishing copyleft projects. ..."
>
>Which sounds really weird. Looks like they are just printing
>hardcopies of free material, slapping an "individual cover image, ISBN
>and barcode" on them.

Must be profitable or they wouldn't be doing it.

[Tamas K Papp]

I was wondering about that, too.

There cannot be a lot of money in this, but maybe occasionally people
are not careful and they buy the stuff this company "publishes".
Probably printed on demand, so it does not require any initial
investment.

OTOH, last time I checked, Amazon had a reasonable return policy. If I
got one of these "books" by accident, I would certainly return it. I
don't know who takes the loss in that case -- if it is Amazon, then
the racket can continue until they wisen up.

Anyhow, anyone who buys this "Lisp book" deserves what they get, there
are quite a few good ones around, some are them are also available online.

Tamas

[John Thingstad]

The Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:09:20 +0000, Tamas K Papp wrote:

> Anyhow, anyone who buys this "Lisp book" deserves what they get, there
> are quite a few good ones around, some are them are also available
> online.
>
> Tamas

I think it is Amazon and other such resellers that primarely are taken
for a ride.

--
John Thingstad

[Spiros Bousbouras]

On 18 Nov, 20:34, Andrew Philpot <phil...@isi.edu> wrote:

> On 2009-11-18, Kenneth Tilton <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ccc31807 wrote:
> >> Does anyone have any information about this book?
>
> >> Lisp (Programming Language) (Paperback)
> >> ~ Frederic P. Miller (Editor), Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John
> >> McBrewster (Editor)
>
> Do not buy. This trio blindly harvests content from Wikipedia, vanity
> publishes it, and sells it. Current count exceeds 1000+ titles; what
> they lack in quality they make up for in quantity.

On the other hand the cover photos can be quite entertaining.
For example:

< http://www.amazon.com/Implementation-Mathematics-Theory-Frederic-Miller/dp/6130090498/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258810848&sr=1-8
>

It's unlikely that anyone would be fooled by this particular book.
Let's hope they don't improve.

[Rui Maciel]

Andrew Philpot wrote:

> Do not buy. This trio blindly harvests content from Wikipedia, vanity
> publishes it, and sells it. Current count exceeds 1000+ titles; what
> they lack in quality they make up for in quantity.
>
> http://rufftoon.livejournal.com/59337.html

It appears that the alphascript publishing company doesn't hide the fact that their books are wikipedia
ripoffs. Taken from their site[1]:

<site>
Q: …do all of Alphascript’s books take their content from Wikipedia?

Alphascript: Yes, since we believe that the quality of the Wikipedia-articles is so good that it is
worthwhile creating books with them. Wikipedia themselves give an impulse for this. The articles published on
their sites are free in every respect and without any limitations as to further use. All authors
participating in texts of Wikipedia know this or should at least know it.
<site/>

It appears they even do comedy:
<site>
Q: If so, shouldn’t this be made clear in the product description?

Alphascript: It is pointed out in every Alphascript book that contents are Wikipedia articles. Do we now have
to write in Amazon-books: “Attention! Books contains Wikipedia!”?

Then other publishing houses would have to point out in their books: “Attention! Book contains nonsense!”,
or: “Attention! Book has only sex-scenario!”
<site/>

I suggest that you just write a review and post it on a hand-full of their titles. A tag or two would also be
nice. That should be enough to warn unsuspecting customers.

Rui Maciel

[1] http://www.alphascript-publishing.com/index.php?&act=nav&nav=10048

[Rui Maciel]

George Neuner wrote:

> Must be profitable or they wouldn't be doing it.

Fraud appears to be a very profitable line of business.

Rui Maciel

[Rui Maciel]

John Thingstad wrote:

> I think it is Amazon and other such resellers that primarely are taken
> for a ride.

If amazon gets a cut of the sale then I believe they aren't necessarily being taken for a ride. The
unsuspecting customer, on the other hand....

Rui Maciel

[Kaz Kylheku]

Shit! You know what's gonna happen next; not stopping at the free encyclopedia,
I betcha these scammers will target free software next.

Mark my words: someone's going to write some scripts to compile GNU/Linux, put
it on a DVD-ROM, and sell it like it's their operating system!

[Rob Warnock]

Kaz Kylheku <kkyl...@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------

| I betcha these scammers will target free software next.
| Mark my words: someone's going to write some scripts to compile GNU/Linux,
| put it on a DVD-ROM, and sell it like it's their operating system!

+---------------

Yeah, under some funny name like, oh, maybe "Scarlet Chapeau"...

[Raffael Cavallaro]

In other news, a late breaking story; Life is not fair.

:^)

--
Raffael Cavallaro

[Rui Maciel]

Kaz Kylheku wrote:

> Shit! You know what's gonna happen next; not stopping at the free
> encyclopedia, I betcha these scammers will target free software next.
>
> Mark my words: someone's going to write some scripts to compile GNU/Linux,
> put it on a DVD-ROM, and sell it like it's their operating system!

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic (that doesn't communicate well through usenet) but a while ago, if
I'm not mistaken, some company was selling an office suite which comprised of nothing more than a vaguely
relabeled OpenOffice.

Rui Maciel

[Raffael Cavallaro]

On 2009-11-22 08:29:15 -0500, Rui Maciel <rui.m...@gmail.com> said:

> I can't tell if you are being sarcastic

Yes, he is.

> (that doesn't communicate well through usenet)

I think that any failure to see the obvious sarcasm is due to the
reader's knowledge (or lack thereof) regarding businesses based on free
content, not Usenet.

--
Raffael Cavallaro

[d...@telent.net]

Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelc...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>
writes:

> On 2009-11-22 08:29:15 -0500, Rui Maciel <rui.m...@gmail.com> said:
>
>> I can't tell if you are being sarcastic
>
> Yes, he is.

Gosh

-dan