VMs: Worry - information loss in transcription - pictures ...

["PK#01" <pklist01@xxxxxxxxx>]

GC writes - in his well stated opinion :

> I predicted that if EVA took center-stage over efforts to improve earlier
> transcriptions, it had the potential to misguide the thinking of an entire
> generation of VMS enthusiasts who were never exposed to earlier
> transcriptions before coming in contact with EVA.

> And
> forget Stolfi's interlinear - he's ripped the heart out of every other
> researcher by transliterating their works into EVA.

I dared to study the text itself, but I fear GC has a point here and it
would be bad just to skip over it. What do the other "old timers" think of
this comment. Are we throwing away information in our transcriptions? Is the
transcription more "lossy" than it should be? Is it worth it to re-study the
basic units of the text?

I personally am a "pictures" person - I think analysis or decryption is way
too difficult for me - so I feel reprimanded in:

>  At a time when
> we have more images available than ever before, we're sitting around
looking
> at the pictures, and not reading the articles.

But at least we can recognize the pictures and try to make intelligent
guesses about them - we have no idea at all about the textual content of the
VMS.

The same way we can try to make hypotheses about the provenance of the
characters themselves - abbreviations, shorthand, etc. Difficult stuff.
Then, when we know the pedigree of the characters we will also be able to
make a better guess at what a "character" really is.

We cannot avoid studying the historic parallels - we have nothing else to go
on.

Greetz, Petr



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