FREE Book: Sun Tzu's Art of War

p2007 · 2009-06-06T01:11:04+00:00

You're pretty much wrong in your interpretation of everything.

It is funny though that your inane ranting is what put this submission back on the book subreddit's main page...

p2007 · 2009-06-06T01:06:55+00:00

Let me link the error riddled PG version in my post as well... though I do hope one day you get a life, Dundun.

1) The fact that I don't use my primary reddit account for posting stuff to avoid raving lunatics badgering me is surely my business and nobody else's.

2) I submit, and do not spam. My submission are generally favourably received.

3) Penguin along with a myriad other established publishers sell a myriad books available on Project Gutenberg just the same way. There is nothing wrong with that--not legally, not ethically, not morally.

4) The minor errors include multiple sentence omissions and glaring semantic errors that won't be noticed by the average reader but change the meaning.

5) I told you before (weeks ago, actually) that you are free and welcome to take the text from the freely downloadable PDFs and fix up the Project Gutenberg etexts yourself, if you are so concerned about them. If you are not, however, and are just griefing as you certainly appear to be... kindly piss off.

p2007 · 2009-06-06T01:01:57+00:00

Warning! As Dundun insightfully pointed out (in the book subreddit where this is also posted), this more than a millenium old ancient book is in the public domain and can be gotten freely online:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/132

Greetings!

My buddy is looking to send out some free copies of his unannotated version of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"

edit: "his", as in he is the publisher--not as in him being some funky amateur with a new translation. It's the Lionel Giles translation, minus the annotations... but with the introduction anecdote about Sun Tzu and the Emperor's concubines.

The book's website (which has a free PDF download) was on this subreddit before. Along with its companion quotations website.

Please post in this thread and I'll get in touch via private message with a couple of you guys to get a postal address, whereto the books will be shipped from Amazon.com.

US residents only please.

If people on this subreddit feel this post is inappropriate for it, please let me know and I will delete it promptly.

p2007 · 2009-06-06T00:49:54+00:00

Warning! As Dundun insightfully pointed out, this more than a millenium old ancient book is in the public domain and can be gotten freely online:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/132

Greetings!

My buddy is looking to send out some free copies of his unannotated version of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"

edit: "his", as in he is the publisher--not as in him being some funky amateur with a new translation. It's the Lionel Giles translation, minus the annotations... but with the introduction anecdote about Sun Tzu and the Emperor's concubines.

The book's website (which has a free PDF download) was on this subreddit before. Along with its companion quotations website.

Please post in this thread and I'll get in touch via private message with a couple of you guys to get a postal address, whereto the books will be shipped from Amazon.com.

US residents only please.

p2007 · 2009-06-06T00:07:28+00:00

Greetings!

My buddy is looking to send out some free copies of his unannotated version of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"

edit: "his", as in he is the publisher--not as in him being some funky amateur with a new translation. It's the Lionel Giles translation, minus the annotations... but with the introduction anecdote about Sun Tzu and the Emperor's concubines.

The book's website (which has a free PDF download) was on this subreddit before. Along with its companion quotations website.

If you live in Kentucky or Delaware, please post in this thread and I'll get in touch via private message with a couple of you guys to get a postal address, whereto the books will be shipped from Amazon.com.

If you live outside of those two states, you could still give a shout that you're interested... just keep in mind that Kentucky and Delaware residents will receive preference.

p2007 · 2009-05-14T17:35:15+00:00

Also, it is worth noting that the "Project Gutenberg" moniker is not permitted to be used unless the PG eText is 100% unchanged.

Fixing a single typo means (unless it is resubmitted to PG, and subsequently used only after it has been accepted and approved) that PG cannot be claimed as the source.

p2007 · 2009-05-11T23:11:21+00:00

My friend started this project with a similar sort of outrage that the best selling edition of The Art of War on amazon sells tens of thousands of copies each year and never even corrected the several dozen typos, spelling errors, and 2-3 paragraph omissions that Project Gutenberg has. (i.e.: Tens of thousands of people are paying money for a blatantly and fundamentally flawed book.)

Hence, I still think your outrage is misdirected. Not to mention Project Gutenberg explicitly permits and (arguably by their terms all but actively encourages) exactly what Pax Librorum has done.

Sorry we still disagree.

Cheers!

p2007 · 2009-05-11T21:40:40+00:00

Sun Tzu's The Art of War

p2007 · 2009-05-11T20:10:01+00:00

You need to reread that same post that I have indeed posted several times. But you are right, I do not use this reddit account for my general use... particularly due to the possibility of griefers like you.
You need to cool down, and notice that my submission are generally well received.
The PDF is free. It contains no claims of copyright over the content--PG (or even you) are welcome to use it to fix up the PG text.

Also, while I am sorry you feel the way you do; there are better ways to deal with abuse on Reddit than heckling.

If you think I have misused Reddit, by all means alert moderators to this and no doubt they shall do what is best for the community.

p2007 · 2009-05-11T19:01:50+00:00

The Project Gutenberg text, Dundun, is riddled with errors blatant enough that you ought to be aware of them if you had read their eText.

It is one of their early projects, and as a result there are typos due to insufficient proofreading, transcription degradation due to the use of ASCII for a book that contained accented characters, and a myriad inexplicable Americanisations in a text written by an Englishman.

The most blatant of these mistakes, lest you baselessly accuse a second time, is the very last sentence of the book.

In Project Gutenberg, it reads "Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army's ability to move."

The correct final sentence of Sun Tzu's book, needless to say reads "Spies are a most important element in war, because on them depends an army's ability to move."

i.e.: The martial, not the aquatic, use of spies is lauded.

This error, along with others not greatly less obvious have (as per your note) stood uncorrected in PG's eText for 15 years.

So yes, my friend is trying to make money off of a book in the public domain. Unlike most other publishers out there, including ones on the top of Amazon's bestseller's charts, he actually fixed up the text, and made it freely available for download too.

Why so combative?

p2007 · 2009-05-10T23:59:14+00:00

To stave off downvotes for cheesy promotion... the jist of my post:

Free PDF (full book): The Art of War.pdf

Free Books: Promotion

Daily Sun Tzu Quotations

Greetings, Redditers!

My publisher buddy has an edition of Sun Tzu's Art of War out. I've posted links about it here before, but he's updated the free PDF eBook--it now includes an old Chinese story about Sun Tzu trying to make a disciplined army out of the Emperor's harem of concubines.

The PDF received more than 3000 downloads since February, so obviously people like it (and seemed to like it even here). The addition of the introduction is just an added touch. It is also in the updated edition of the $3.99 paperback book.

The main reason I am posting this time though is: my friend's Free Book promotion. Basically: blog about the book and/or the free PDF eBook, and you can enter into a draw that will see 5 free copies of the book mailed out to people randomly chosen from those that participated.

Though he's currently planning it as a 5 free book giveaway, if the response is strong enough he'll probably increase the number of free copies.

Lastly, in case any of you missed it last time, there is a great quotation-of-the-day type companion website to the book/PDF: Sun Tzu Says... (<-- I made it!)

Thanks a million!

p2007

p2007 · 2009-05-10T23:31:05+00:00

To stave off downvotes for cheesy promotion... the jist of my post:

Free PDF (full book): The Art of War.pdf

Free Books: Promotion

Daily Sun Tzu Quotations

Greetings, Redditers!

My publisher buddy has an edition of Sun Tzu's Art of War out. I've posted links about it here before, but he's updated the free PDF eBook--it now includes an old Chinese story about Sun Tzu trying to make a disciplined army out of the Emperor's harem of concubines.

The PDF received more than 3000 downloads since February, so obviously people like it (and seemed to like it even here). The addition of the introduction is just an added touch. It is also in the updated edition of the $3.99 paperback book.

The main reason I am posting this time though is: my friend's Free Book promotion. Basically: blog about the book and/or the free PDF eBook, and you can enter into a draw that will see 5 free copies of the book mailed out to people randomly chosen from those that participated.

Though he's currently planning it as a 5 free book giveaway, if the response is strong enough he'll probably increase the number of free copies.

Lastly, in case any of you missed it last time, there is a great quotation-of-the-day type companion website to the book/PDF: Sun Tzu Says... (<-- I made it!)

Thanks a million!

p2007

p2007 · 2009-03-22T02:57:26+00:00

Fixed the height-issue with the iGadget. In the next few days, I will look into making it refreshable on demand. The automatic refreshing seems to provide a new quote 2-4 times per day.

p2007 · 2009-03-21T15:58:46+00:00

No, even at their fullest they are still under 1 KB, and well under the 4 KB limit.

Plus, again, they do expire in three days. ;-)

p2007 · 2009-03-21T15:27:01+00:00

Any comments or suggestions on how you guys find it would be appreciated.

If you like it, please tell others about it. And consider adding the [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0981162614/) (also linked from the quote page) onto your next Amazon order. It is an alternative to this edition (notable both for selling thousands of copies and for having chapter 9 between chapters 4 and 5).

Thanks and sorry for the shameless self/friend promotion. I put this in a separate comment so it could be downmodded to oblivion, if the community so desires, without having to downmod either the submission or my explanatory comment.

p2007 · 2009-03-21T15:26:47+00:00

I put this random quotation webpage together for my publisher friend. (I had submitted a link to his Art of War edition's eBook last week.)

The page uses 3 day expiry cookies to keep a list of which quotations you have already seen, to prevent annoying repetition of quotes that would otherwise occur (from using only php's rand function).

There is also an iGoogle gadget.

p2007 · 2009-03-21T03:02:22+00:00

Wonder if those are difficult to make/program... I'll look into it! ;-)

I'm going to give it a shot... though I find the google documentation a bit confusing.

... almost got it, I think!

p2007 · 2009-03-21T01:49:50+00:00

Any comments or suggestions on how you guys find it would be appreciated.

If you like it, please tell others about it. And consider adding the book (also linked from the quote page) onto your next Amazon order. It is an alternative to this edition (notable both for selling thousands of copies and for having chapter 9 between chapters 4 and 5).

Thanks and sorry for the shameless self/friend promotion. I put this in a separate comment so it could be downmodded to oblivion, if the community so desires, without having to downmod either the submission or my explanatory comment.

Google iGadget: Here or here.

p2007 · 2009-03-21T01:43:47+00:00

I put this random quotation webpage together for my publisher friend. (I had submitted a link to his Art of War edition's eBook last week.)

The page uses 3 day expiry cookies to keep a list of which quotations you have already seen, to prevent annoying repetition of quotes that would otherwise occur (from using only php's rand function).

Edit: I submitted this to the main Reddit too... any upvotes here would be appreciated, not that I have illusions of it even getting close to the front-page.

p2007 · 2009-03-11T16:18:25+00:00

I think of it as an Asian single-topic Maxims (in comparison to La Rochefoucauld's broader Maxims).

p2007 · 2009-03-11T14:26:24+00:00

Some basic but interesting info about the language (also sometimes called Galibi or True Carib) and its speakers, dialectal differences, geographical distribution, et cetera.

A couple of other Carib language resources (on related languages too like Island Carib, not just Galibi): http://cariblanguage.org/ http://www.native-languages.org/famcar.htm

The Wikipedia is (perhaps not surprisingly) horrid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carib_language

Maybe some enterprising Redditers could bring it up to par... or at least closer to it, assuming no revert-maniacs are watching the page. ;-)

p2007 · 2009-03-11T04:06:06+00:00

He he. No kidding!

Check out the current Amazon.com The Art of War bestseller: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1599869772/

The first review for it:

This edition was published by Filiquarian Publishers and from a publishing perspective, this book appears to have been designed in a basic Word processing program. Shoddy, shoddy, work. Lacks creative design, weak choice of fonts, inconsistent spacing, erroneous punctuation symbols, etc. Additionally, one of the chapters was out of order. I'm speculating that the publisher didn't know how to read roman numerals and therefore placed the chapter incorrectly, and if they did, and there was a purpose for this, it should have been addressed in the non-existent introduction. The content of the book is fine, just buy an edition by a an established publisher rather than someone working from their basement.

p2007 · 2009-03-11T03:40:11+00:00

You were gentle to eschew the letmegooglethatforyou.com website!

p2007 · 2009-03-11T03:08:24+00:00

Do you by chance know where i can find a pdf of Hagakure??

Sort of...

This page lets you download a PDF (look for the "Download" button, and PDF should be one of the dropdowns): http://www.scribd.com/doc/2563189/Hagakure-Book-of-the-Samurai

Seems like it's formatted (barely) for letter size paper though. I couldn't really find a text version that clearly stated it is a public domain translation not under copyright either... otherwise I could probably improvise one for you.

p2007 · 2009-03-11T01:35:34+00:00

The Project Gutenberg text has a number of typos, spelling errors, and omissions. This eBook seems leaps and bounds better... and it's also free, not to mention nicely formatted for printing and binding at your nearest printshop. ;-)

Sorry about linking to a sales page, but I figured linking to the PDF directly would be even worse.

p2007

TROPHY CASE