Trout's Notes on San Pedro [Sacred Cacti 3rd edition] IN STOCK NOW.

[Seldom]

Merry Christmas Trout!

[trucha]

Thanks, I hope you have a great year.

[trucha]

I made a comment on this in another thread here but thought I should stick in a note that an excerpt from the Lophophora williamsii entry in Sacred Cacti will be appearing in the next issue (#3) of Dragibus.

If people have not seen Dragibus yet they really should. The piece Kada wrote on Acacia confusa in issue 1 is the first new work out on that species in a heck of a while and is a really good article. Its just one of a number of articles that anyone with interest in these subjects are going to want to see.

http://www.dragibusmag.com/

[Weazelloph]

Just picked up a copy of trouts notes cactus cultivation.

I recommend any enthusiasts to purchase a copy!.

Will be pick up a copy of sc3 this week if I get the chance.

[B'Hhmmmm]

My trouts notes 3rd edition arrived today.. Very happy!

As we have had some crazy rain over the last few days I've been waiting for my postie everyday for the last week, I think he must've noticed because I had a knock on my door and to my suprise the postie had jumped of his bike to give me my book..

Was so grateful that he didnt fold her into my mail box.

Think I might have to do something for my postie lol

[trucha]

I appreciate all of the feedback on this and other works.

It did not do much to stimulate sales when I put the Tryptamine book online but I felt it was a good thing to do anyway- for sake of a positive closure if nothing else.

The San Pedro book has now been added.

If creating and posting PDFs is an activity from me people want to see continue with additional older works and future creations its easy to show support for that process. Several people have mentioned I should do a kickstarter project in order to gauge public support but I'd suggest that gauging my level of public support is what I'm doing.

Thanks to all the people who have enjoyed this work enough to buy a book in the past.

I hope everyone enjoys the PDF.

http://www.largelyaccurateinformationmedia.com/SP.html

[Belching]

I am all in favour of PDFs! Downloaded and Paypal'd. Because of the insecure nature of PDFs, I would suggest putting something like this on the second page:

"If you've received this PDF from a location other than largelyaccurateinformationmedia.com, thank the person you got it from and ask them to do the right thing by linking to the original page."

[trucha]

That's good advice, Belching, although I'm not sure people who don't care to begin with will be stimulated to develop good ethics. A friend in Texas told me "It's a waste of time trying to teach a pig to sing. The most you can achieve is to annoy the pig."

I appreciate your thought and will reflect on incorporating it. Its a curiously complex picture.

If I try to restrict access to people who give me money it just stimulates secondary distribution via free channels. Once something is digital the producer loses control of it or at least that is the effective reality of the present system for creative works online (outside of the music industry).

If I move entirely into digital publishing what you mention will somehow have to enter the equation or the creative process & outflow won't be sustainable. Lack of available time is my single biggest obstacle. There are a lot of things I have not figured out yet and thoughts and suggestions such as yours give me a lot of good food for thought. Thanks!

Edited June 23, 2013 by trucha

[trucha]

I posted a similar statement at the DMT-Nexus

I had an idea and would appreciate thoughts anyone might have.

The book Sacred Cacti is something I've been working to get out for sometime. Such a long time that it might be doubted it will be completed. I know doubts have crossed my mind occasionally.

One challenge has always been acquiring and then processing the wealth of references needed to bring it up to date. Despite my best efforts and several amazing people who are helping me acquire papers it appears that completion is going to be delayed due to the size of what is still needed - largely in the area around betalains in Opuntia and Hylocereus species (not just to acquire the papers but to process and digest the details of their contents). This slow but inavoidable process has previously resulted in the delayed release of Sacred Cacti and Part C for over a decade so that realization makes me uncomfortable.

Whenever I wait as little as two years there is always enough new work that I feel the need to rewrite at least parts of it. Any compendium of phytochemical work can at best be regarded as a work in progress and subject to change based on future research. The question boils down to how complete is complete enough to release.

I am thinking of putting the present versions online * in their entirety * as sort of in-progress proof copies. I began this process with Cactus Chemistry By Species and plan to replace that work with an updated version as well as putting the Cactus Alkaloids book online. Hopefully both of those will occur within not many days from now. Then I can focus on finally getting Sacred Cacti Part A out followed by the updated and revised San Pedro book to replace the 7 year old one that is presently online.

Whenever I obtain and digest the rest of what I need to actually update and complete each of the books that form the larger work Sacred Cacti, be that a year from now or another ten years from now, the online pdfs can be replaced with the newer versions. In the meantime perhaps their availability can be of service as reference tools while permitting readers to help me eliminate errors or to suggest edits and additions?

[gtarman]

If you can sort the format out Trout, Kindle is probably a good avenue to go for digital stuff. Generally something that's released on Kindle is not spread about in the way something cross-platform is like a .mobi .pdf or .epub file is. They're generally too involved to crack and upload (I'm not sure exactly what kind of write-protection they use, if any). But so many books are released on Kindle (as in, almost every new title since a couple years ago) and the majority of them just don't get ripped for whatever reason. Probably because the process to do so is quite involved.

So I'd say if you published on Kindle, actively scout for pirate downloads every month or two and get them taken down, coupled with keping the price reasonable enough that people would choose to buy over the pain-in-the-ass it would be to get an illegal copy, even if they could. It's not so much about making sure it can't be copied and distributed, just about making sure it's too hard and not worth it to do so. My two cents anyhow

[trucha]

Thanks for the thoughts. A big problem with Kindle is a lack of support for images or color, otherise this would all be available on Kindle already.

[gtarman]

Ah, right. Yeah images tend not to be it's strong point. The later releases of it support colour, but yeah might not be a great idea after all..glad I'm not in the publishing game.

[trucha]

Yeah, there are a lot of good reasons that every year there are fewer of us willing to engage in that masochistic adventure.

[trucha]

A follow-up on thoughts I posted above:

I've been assessing what I am doing and found that in creating Sacred Cacti's sections I have so far incorporated more than 2900 references for its three parts.

By the time I get something approaching comprehensive done it appears that it will add between 1 and 2 thousand more papers on Opuntia & Hylocereus alone, easily a thousand papers on norepinephrine, almost as many for each of epinephrine, salsolidine and dopamine, some hundreds more titles for each of synephrine, tyramine and hordenine and some hundreds more papers on the assorted other cactus species, taxonomic issues and alkaloids.

I can continue to delay release of current material while I acquire and process my way through that daunting mass of data or I can release what I have done with them sooner in hopes readers can help me spot errors and suggest updates while I continue to work my way towards completion.

My goal is to get all four books released by Spring of 2014 or before.

With luck the current version of Sacred Cacti Part C Cactus Chemistry will be online in its entirety within no more than the next few days (both sections: Cactus Chemistry By Species and Cactus Alkaloids). I am targeting Part A to be online by the end of the year and the revised San Pedro by Spring or before.

Eventually the completed works can replace the in-progress works but in the meantime the information they contain will become more readily accessible.

[trucha]

Two more reference pieces are now accessible online:

The Cactus Alkaloids (27 Mb) 384 pages

http://www.largelyaccurateinformationmedia.com/C13.html

Cactus Chemistry By Species (227 Mb) 636 pages

http://www.largelyaccurateinformationmedia.com/C10.html

[Added note: The online version is now 240 Mb and has 662 pages.]

The 2007 version is still online

Cactus Chemistry By Species (69 Mb) 344 pages

http://www.largelyaccurateinformationmedia.com/C10o.html

I welcome and encourage critical feedback, corrections and additions. PM or email me if wanted.

Edited December 15, 2013 by trucha

[trucha]

I have to wonder if any of these people really ever sell any of these copies but was amazed at the used book prices listed on Amazon for Trout's Notes on San Pedro. Especially considering it is still being sold new by Moksha.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0977087603/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1386748047&sr=8-1&keywords=Trout%27s+Notes+on+San+Pedro&condition=used

[trucha]

My apologies for replacing this file again so soon but I just received permission to include Klein's 2013 results in the lophophora chemistry entry!

Those results are not yet published outside of her thesis and a poster presentation at the last Economic Botany conference in London but when it goes to print it will become the first published account evaluating the relative mescaline concentrations between the crown, the subterranean stem and the root (previously there has only been 2-3 looks at the crown versus the root one of which was TLC). As far as I know it is also the first paper including a deeper view of how much variation there is between individuals. I've added only the highlights at this point so as not to risk interfering with the publication of this important material.

Those who have enjoyed seeing CactusChemistryBySpecies_2013.pdf will no doubt want to download the newer version.

Its now 674 pages and around 253Mb.

[shonman]

Trout,

I offer my illustratin and graphics skills if ever needed

[trucha]

Thanks! My life and plans certainly seem to keep getting rearranged this past year but I look forward to working with you.

[trucha]

Apologies that the site is having serious problems right now.

I hope to have that corrected soon.

[Evil Genius]

Site will be back soon! Shonman, thank you for the offer. Are you a Designer? I´m sure Trout could use a nice Logo.

Edited February 9, 2014 by Evil Genius

[trucha]

The site is back up but only partially. I hope to have it completed this week.

[mineral]

Your writings are very helpful, Trout! Thank you.

[trucha]

Thanks!

Here is a major shift in my planned activities that I hope people enjoy seeing:

http://troutsnotes.com/

[solomon]

Wow, digging the feel of the new site, Trout. Just having a look now.

It really was time for a new look though..

Anyway, keep that knowledge coming, very appreciated I must say.