None of my business, but when was the last time you produced a "camera-ready", or "digital-publishing-ready" manuscript of any length?

Most professional journals - even those which require manuscripts to be submitted in Tex or Latex - still have literally rooms full of human beings who have to deal with the innumerable problems that arise in what would at first glance appear to be "trivial" problems, such as getting the allegedly already-formatted text:

a)  to flow seamlessly from one page to the next, and
b)  to wrap around/next to/beside(or whatever format has been chosen) the graphics, which are the focus of the book,

and then, that having been done,

c) dealing with all the inconsistencies in graphical formatting standards which have been used over the last 7 years we've all enjoyed Jim's magnum opus.

And those details having been dealt with, one then probabky discovers that the "holes" left in the CD's layout for the graphics are either 2 lines too small, or leave too much empty space, which doesn't look great on the screen.

So on to iteration #2, and so on, and so on. Fortunatley Jim's business is exactly that,a s I understand it: as a graphical designer, he deals with these issues on an everyday basis for his clients.

Anyway, I believe that eliminating all internal inconsistencies (i.e., "proofreading", "debugging", or as a lawyer would say, "producing the final conformed version" of such a huge graphical/text document) is a monumental task. Something akin to the first time you had to write a Compiler in Fortran, for example. Times 10.

So I'm really happy that Jim's taking the time off to take stock of his baby now, before PNL or someone else's backup version gets lost or corrupted, making the current task virtually impossible.

We'll all be glad (most of all Jim, as well as PNL and others who are helping Jim on what must be a daily basis) this huge dataset sees the light of day as a CD-ROM, and might even be published as a book (my personal desire).

Whatever the case, it ain't no "drag and drop" process, I'm sure.

D. Freed

These may seem like they're just "drag and drop" issues, but Jim has mentioned that there are irritating, time-consuming, not-so-little problems such as
a) a few actual "holes" in the continuous dataset he's publishing,
b) the fact that some are true "holes"(lost data), others a matter of converting whatever PNL or ather Archivists may have elected to

David Boddington wrote:

At 09:58 AM 02-03-25 -0500, Jim Muth <JimMuth@aol.com> wrote:

>Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

>There are rumors that I am running out of enthusiasm for the
>FOTD, that the interval between FOTD's will gradually grow
>longer until that day arrives when the FOTD shall be no more.

Jim:

I don't wish to be accused of "Boogeyizm" by the "Multiples" of the
Fractint list, but I'm not sure what the big deal is with the FOTD CD,
that it should take up huge amounts of your time.  Don't you simply
drag and drop all the files you wish to include on to your CD burner
desktop icon, and then make copies?

FWIW, IWYTK that FOTD makes a big difference to my day.  More
than any other daily internet offering, I look forward to viewing FOTD
on either web site and derive great pleasure from doing so.

Lately I've found it difficult to face these trying times without my
regular FOTD fix.  As a matter of fact, if there is no hope of getting
FOTD on a more regular basis, I may have to get out my fractal razor
blade and make a deep incision across Seahorse Valley  :(
Seriously though, just like a day without Bach and Mozart, a day
without FOTD is like a day without sunshine.  The universe <<will>>
return to chaos if the high priest of FOTD neglects his daily ritual.

Sincerely,
David Boddington

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