I'm trying to find a way to convert PDFs to text because something is really funky with the PDFs I need from my teacher's web page for Computer Organization. Acrobat Reader crashed my computer trying to read the PDFs the first time, so I've upgraded to the newest version. It hasn't crashed again yet, but both times Acrobat Reader hasn't let me select the text in the document. Anyway, I'll post what I find, and I'd be thankful if anyone has any resources they can point me to.

Adobe recommends checking out PDFZone.com, and Planet PDF. Adobe also has online conversion tools that will convert a PDF to html for the benefit of disabled users, but their tools don't work on the files.

Ok, GSView was able to display the file, but it also wasn't able to extract the text. There's Jade, but that costs 200 dollars.

You know, for some reason the "text" of this PDF might be a graphic. I don't know why my professor would make it a graphic, but it just might be. Anyway, time to type it

Yeah, it is an image... gaaay. I checked the source of the PDF and none of the text is there.

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21:29 (utc-5)
edited: 22:29 (utc-5)

 

I just saw the first commercial for Austin Powers 3. I think they said it's coming out July 26th. "This film is not yet rated".

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20:56 (utc-5)
edited: 21:06 (utc-5)

 

That was weird. My computer went down in flames (figuratively) like I've never seen before.

I was about to say "I can't wait until I can switch to Linux full time", but even if Linux itself is stable, the Linux GUIs crash more often than Windows does for me, so I lose either way.

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20:31 (utc-5)

 

Whim&Vinegar, about the stupid police force in Penryn, Pennsylvania: "I've got to wonder if any of these people have actually read the books". That's the same thought I had, but she had some other excellent comments: "Our police force, as an arm of the state, does not get to pick and choose what jobs they will work based on religion."

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17:44 (utc-5)

 

I think I may want to get Vice Versa if and when it comes out on DVD (if it's not too expensive). Good movie!

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06:18 (utc-5)

 

I love synchronicity. Right after I get an e-mail from Crawford about my post on evolution yesterday, I check out Slashdot and find a post put there under two hours ago about the very same thing he brought up in his e-mail. Then again, maybe he got the idea in the first place from Slashdot, or the article they linked to.

Here's one neat comment on Slashdot.

Ok, I wrote back to Crawford. Here was my take on the topic, arguing from an evolutionary point of view:

... For the sake of argument, survival of the fittest never ends, it's just that the standards of fitness change. There may be a larger percentage of people in the future who have poor eyesight than there were thousands of years ago, but people in the future may be smarter. It all depends on the selection criteria. It is interesting though, that humans are the only species to be able to partly control their own selection criteria, in a way, because we're able to control our environment (in terms of which we're 'fit').

I left out part of what I had sent to Crawf... I've just decided to include it:

Of course there's much more to the discussion, including that a worldview which believes in all aspects of "evolution" would (sort of) negate what I just said about being able to control our environment, since that worldview would destroy any possibility of human freedom. But that's another topic.

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05:40 (utc-5)
edited: 17:48 (utc-5)

 

Hey, it looks like I'm fighting anthrax now instead of fighting cancer like I signed up to do. And they changed it without telling me! That's not right.

Their most recent newsletter mentioned that they were starting the anthrax project, but that's all. Their page on the anthrax project says "Once completed, United Devices will return its focus to the cancer project. As per United Devices Member Policy, Members who want to commit their computing cycles exclusively to cancer research can do so." but I can't figure out how to turn it back.

I'm going to e-mail the guy who made the announcement on their message board and ask what's up.

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05:19 (utc-5)
edited: 05:21 (utc-5)

 

Well, my markup language is basically done, but I timed it and it seems like it's a little slower than I'd like. Maybe I can cut down on the regular expressions a bit. Anyway, I may not want to use it for every weblog post if it stays as slow as it is, but it'll certainly be good enough for my articles, if I ever actually write any.

I still have to clean it up, and I think I'm going to incorporate some ideas from Zope's StructuredText. Then I'll put it on my software page.

I'm now going to try to start writing the article I've been wanting to write.

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04:05 (utc-5)

 

Wow, very cool DHTML. And it even works (just about totally) in Mozilla! Go to DHTMLCentral.com for the script. The same script seems to be used on the homepage of that site, but it works much better in IE than it does in Mozilla.

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03:20 (utc-5)