

Google to bring Dead Sea Scrolls online - jeromec
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Google-to-bring-Dead-Sea-apf-2071511005.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=

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hammerdr
These are the types of things that made me fall in love with Google in the
00's. It makes me happy that Google is continuing its quest to make all
historical documents available to everyone.

Now, I know cynics can argue that "This is just Google driving more search
traffic!" or "This is Google putting a ton of money into a PR campaign!" In
fact, I would be one of those cynics if I didn't believe this is just residue
from a kinder, more lofty-goaled Google that was led by Larry and Sergey.

I want the old Google back.

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rakkhi
Totally agree I think it is brilliant that Google can spend resources on
projects like this, for me it is similar to lofty goals like scanning all
printed books on earth so they are digitally searchable, I mean how else would
most people discover the long tail of books? Also streetview with covering the
entire globe, computer driven cars and investment in wind farms are projects
that could really advance humanity.

I don't even mind as a shareholder!

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oiuytrdrfghj
This is typical of the sort of free-loading piracy that Google promotes.

Have they even tried to contact the authors? Don't they and their families
deserve some of the royalties?

Has Sonny Bono been told?

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quizbiz
I think print.google.com can be an amazing tool for fostering research on
ancient texts without compromising the preservation and security of such rare
ancient documents. I hope this is the first of many rare texts to be made
public and accessible.

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tjarratt
Seeing as how Google initially made the entire web more public and accessible,
and has done so with much print, it seems likely they will continue as much as
possible.

I, for one, would like to see some older books that I have little chance of
finding used in a bookstore, or do not wish to pay hundreds of dollars for the
privilege of owning. Perhaps the next rare book will be the Codex
Seraphinianus (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus>)? I can
always hope...

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Alex3917
This is actually fairly historic considering all of the controversy that arose
over the translation of the original sea scrolls. Basically almost all of the
translators were members of the Catholic church, so when they discovered that
the scrolls undermined their faith they just sat on them for 20+ years so no
one else was allowed to read them. (With the except of John Marco Allegro, the
one non-Catholic who published his work immediately and then went on to use
them in his next book as evidence that Jesus was actually a psilocybin
mushroom.)

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tjarratt
I hope I'm not the only one that thinks it's hilarious that this news about
Google is being reported by Yahoo.

Where's the official Google announcement?

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wyclif
I was gonna ask just that question when I saw your comment. Indeed. Where is
the Google announcement? Anybody?

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torial
I was hoping they'd be using advanced imaging for text not visible to the
naked eye, and was excited to see this paragraph: "The refined images were
shot with a high-tech infrared camera NASA uses for space imaging. It helped
uncover sections of the scrolls that have faded over the centuries and became
indecipherable"

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iskander
The (still!) ongoing translation of the dead sea scroll fragments could really
benefit from some computational techniques. They're trying to do something
akin to gene sequencing manually.

