[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter

Michael Hart hart at pglaf.org
Wed Aug 18 09:56:37 PDT 2004


GWeekly_August_18.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, August 18, 2004 PT1
*****eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******

Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart at pobox.com or gbnewby at pglaf.org
Anyone who would care to get advance editions:  please email hart at pobox.com


TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Search for "*eBook" or "*Intro". . .to jump to that section, etc.]

*eBook Milestones
*Introduction
*Hot Requests New Sites and Announcements
*Continuing Requests and Announcements
*Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
*Permanent Requests For Assistance:
*Donation Information
*Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections
  *Mirror Site Information
  *Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks
*Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet?
*Flashback
*Weekly eBook update:
   This is now in PT2 of the Weekly Newsletter
   Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter
   Corrections in separate section
   1 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
   53 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists

***

                          *eBook Milestones


                We Are Over 90% of the Way to 15,000!!!


                     13,538 eBooks As Of Today!!!


                         6,462 to go to 20,000


We have now averaged over 400 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971!!!


It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks

It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100

It took ~3 years from 2001 to 2004 for our last 10,000 eBooks


***Introduction

NOT NEWS!!!

Perhaps the most important news of the week is that Australia seems to
be reversing its stance against copyright extenstion.  Just a couple
years ago we were reporting that the Australian Parliament has passed
a resolution stating they would resist all attempts to force a longer
copyright period upon them via what amounts to economic warfare.

However, several sources have reported and confirmed that it is highly
likely that this official resolution will go the way of the dinosaurs
by the end of this year, giving it a lifespan not all that much longer
than that of The Gulf Of Tonkin Resolution that was used to start the
Viet Nam War.

The details aren't all clear yet, but it appears Australian copyrights
will be extended from the author's "life +50 years" to "life +70 years."
It is unclear at this time if the latest 20 years, or one million books,
will be eliminated from the public domain and returned to copyright, as
was done recently in the UK and Italy, or if there will be a moratorium
on copyright expirations for the next 20 years as was done in the US.

Depending on how this works out, Project Gutenbergs in other locations
with "life +50" copyritht, such as Canada and Europe, should probably
be sure to mirror all the eBooks on Australian sites by year's end.

Speaking of the International Project Gutenberg efforts, we should add
that we have two new languages represented in our collection:

Czech

and

Tagalog

bringing our total now to 33 languages.

***

[The Newsletter is now being sent in two sections, so you can directly
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Today, and until we actually GET new Newsletter editors who want to
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[Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a
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   This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter


Over Our 33 06/52 Year History, We Have Now Averaged About 400 eBooks/Yr
And This Year We Are Averaging Nearly That New eBook Level. . .PER MONTH!


         We Are Averaging About 360 eBooks Per Month This Year

                           About 84 Per Week

***



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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders


     In the first 7.50 months of this year, we produced 2627 new eBooks.

  It took us from July 1971 to July 2000 to produce our first 2,627 eBooks!

               That's 32 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 Years!

                  54   New eBooks This Week
                  46   New eBooks Last Week
                 100   New eBooks This Month [August]

                 350   Average Per Month in 2004
                 355   Average Per Month in 2003
                 203   Average Per Month in 2002
                 103   Average Per Month in 2001

                2631   New eBooks in 2004
                4164   New eBooks in 2003
                2441   New eBooks in 2002
                1240   New eBooks in 2001
                ====
               10476   New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
                         That's Only 43.50 Months!

              13,538  Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
               9,036   eBooks This Week Last Year
                ====
               4,502   New eBooks In Last 12 Months

                 371   eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia


We're still keeping up with Moore's Law!

Moore's Law 12 month percentage =  85%

Moore's Law 18 month percentage = 101%

[100% of Moore's Law = doubling every 18 months]

***

PRODUCTION REPORT FROM THE DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS:

             !!! CLOSING IN ON #5,000 !!!

Since completing its first eBook (#3320) on Mar 13th, 2001, the
Distributed Proofreaders team has now produced its 4,991st eBook (#13196).

Projects completed since the beginning of the year:
   Jan 2004 -  267
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   Apr 2004 -  276
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   Jun 2004 -  232
   Jul 2004 -  231
   Aug 2004 -   92 (As of Aug 18)

Two years ago they completed their 405th eBook (#5733).
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Today Is Day #230 of 2004
This Completes Week #32 and Month #7.50
   141 Days/24 Weeks To Go  [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
  6462 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]

    82   Weekly Average in 2004
    79   Weekly Average in 2003
    47   Weekly Average in 2002
    24   Weekly Average in 2001

    41   Only 41 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list
          [Used to be well over 100]


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***

Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???

Statistical Review

In the 32 weeks of this year, we have produced 2631 new eBooks.
It took us from 1971 to 1999 to produce our FIRST 2631 eBooks!!!

          That's 32 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 YEARS!!!


With 13,538 eBooks online as of August 11, 2004 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.74 from each book,
for Project Gutenberg to have currently given away $1,000,000,000,000
[One Trillion Dollars] in books.

100,000,000 readers is only about 1.5% of the world's population!

This "cost" is down from about $1.11 when we had 8861 eBooks a year Ago

Can you imagine ~13,538 books each costing ~$.37 less a year later???
Or. . .would this say it better?
Can you imagine ~13,538 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???

At 13,538 eBooks in 33 Years and 01.50 Months We Averaged
       409 Per Year   [We do nearly that much a month these days!]
        34.0 Per Month
         1.12 Per Day

At 2631 eBooks Done In The 230 Days Of 2004 We Averaged
      11.4 Per Day
      80.1 Per Week
     350.8 Per Month

The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks'
production; each production-week starts/ends Wednesday noon,
starts with the first Wednesday of January.  January 7th was
the first Wednesday of 2004, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2003 and began the production year of 2004 at noon.

This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.


                            *Flashback!!!

                   2631 New eBooks So Far in 2004

               It took us ~30 years for the first 2631 !

       That's the 7.50 months of 2004 as Compared to ~30 years!!!

      Here Is A Sample Of What Books Were Being Done Around #2631

May 2001 Du Cote de Chez Swann, Marcel Proust   [Proust #1][?swanxxx.xxx] 2650
   [Language: French]
   (Note: Vol. One "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu")
   (8swanxxh.zip has three files; single HTML available in:)[swannxxh.xxx]
May 2001 Captains of the Civil War, by William Wood        [cptcwxxx.xxx] 2649
May 2001 George Cruikshank, by William M. Thackeray[WMT#16][cruikxxx.xxx] 2648
May 2001 V1 Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, by Trevelyan[1lllmxxx.xxx] 2647
[Author:  George Otto Trevelyan]

May 2001 John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character[WMT15][jlplcxxx.xxx] 2646
[Author:  William Makepeace Thackeray]
May 2001 The Second Funeral of Napoleon, by W. M. Thackeray[2napfxxx.xxx] 2645
May 2001 Isaac Bickerstaff, by Richard Steele              [iscbkxxx.xxx] 2644
May 2001 John Bull, by J. Arbuthnot                        [jhnblxxx.xxx] 2643

May 2001 Back Home, by Eugene Wood                         [bckhmxxx.xxx] 2642
May 2001 A Room With A View, by E. M. Forster  [Forster #2][rmwvwxxx.xxx] 2641
May 2001 St. Martin's Summer, by Rafael Sabatini   [RS #6] [stmsmxxx.xxx] 2640
May 2001 Villa Rubein et al, by John Galsworthy [JG#7/FS#4][vlrbnxxx.xxx] 2639
   Contents:
     Villa Rubein
     A Man of Devon
     A Knight
     Salvation of a Forsyte [This is our 4th Forsyte piece]
     The Silence

May 2001 The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky [Dostoieffsky #5][idiotxxx.xxx] 2638
[Also spelled:  Dostoevsky, and several other variants, and Feodor/Fe"dor]
May 2001 Youth, by Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi[Tolstoy/Tolstoi #10][youthxxx.xxx] 2637
.(Note:  the filename youthxxx.xxx is also used for a totally different
.(eBook, #525 in etext96)
May 2001 Historical Nights' Entertainment, V1, by Sabatini [hnitsxxx.xxx] 2636
[FT: The Historical Nights' Entertainment][Author: Rafael Sabatini [#5]]
May 2001 Clarence, by Bret Harte         [Bret Harte #32]  [clrncxxx.xxx] 2635


*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage

[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]


>From NewsScan:

HACKER WANTS TO MAKE iTUNES EVERYBODY'S TUNES

[More below in Edupage section]

Jon Lech Johansen, the Norwegian hacker who gained notoriety for
developing DVD encryption-cracking software, has created a software key that
unlocks the encryption Apple uses for its AirPort Express -- which lets
users broadcast digital music from Apple's online iTunes Music Store on a
stereo not plugged into a computer. Johansen, who posted the key on his Web
site (mockingly named "So Sue Me"), is an open source advocate critical of
Apple for using a proprietary system to ensure that its products work only
with each other. Apple has not yet reacted to this new intrusion. (AP/San
Jose Mercury News 12 Aug 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9385704.htm

and in a related story

THE NEW MEANING OF OWNERSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE
       When you buy a CD from a store, you "own" that music, and as long as
you don't bootleg it or charge lots of people money to listen to it, it's
yours. But if you purchase that same playlist online, in most cases you're
purchasing the "rights" to the content which is "locked" by some type of
digital rights management software. Not only that, but those rights may
change over time, dictated by the whims of the music company you get them
from. For instance, Apple Computer recently upped the number of computers
on which its iTunes music files can be concurrently installed from three to
five, but there's nothing stopping it from making its DRM more restrictive
in the future -- although the company says that's unlikely. Meanwhile,
customers of RealNetwork's Rhapsody music service "rent" their songs for a
monthly fee but can play them only on their PCs, not their MP3 players. All
these variables mean that consumers will need to be better informed in the
future about what it is they're actually getting for their money, says Alan
Davidson, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology:
"DRM underscores the point that consumers are going to have to become a lot
more sophisticated about what they're buying."
(Wall Street Journal 16 Aug 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109260940215891895,00.html

and in yet perhaps an even bigger related story

REALNETWORKS UPS THE ANTE, SLASHES PRICES
In a strategy to undermine Apple Computer's dominance in the online
music market, RealNetworks is cutting its prices at the RealPlayer Music
Store to 49 cents per song and $4.99 per album. Apple's iTunes Music Store
sells songs for 99 cents apiece and albums for $9.99. The discount will
prove a losing proposition for RealNetworks in the short term, because it
will be charging less than it pays music companies in royalties, but
RealNetworks hopes its radical move will help to unseat Apple, which by
some estimates commands a 70% share of the music-download market.
RealNetworks also seeks to draw attention to its Harmony technology, which
enables users to listen to songs purchased from RealPlayer on Apple iPod
music players. Up until now, iPods have played only music purchased at
iTunes. (Wall Street Journal 17 Aug 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109269116575992799,00.html (sub req'd)


GOOGLE SLASHES SHARE PRICE

[This is a very conservative report compared to the others I've heard]

Google has cut the expected share price for its initial public stock
offering by almost a third, an indication that demand from investors is
considerably less than was expected. The Internet search firm now says its
expected price range will be between $85 and $95 per share -- whereas its
original projected price range was between $108 to $135 per share. Google
also announced that the number of shares ultimately available to the public
will be reduced from about 25 million to 19.6 million.
(Washington Post 18 Aug 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10478-2004Aug18.html


[More on the RFID front. . .telling ADS to go to YOUR house,
and telling ADVERTIZERS if their product is in your pantry!]

THEY'RE INTO YOUR TELLY, NEXT THEY'LL BE INTO YOUR PANTRY
The top four U.S. broadcast networks -- CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox -- have
signed on to comply with a new 12-character code system called Ad-ID, to be
used for tracking all advertising. The system is being compared in
importance to the introduction three decades ago of the universal product
code (UPC) bar codes for tracking retail sales and inventory. Marketing
professor Peter Sealey at the University of California at Berkeley explains:
"It's going to allow advertisers for the first time to precisely target
individuals for whom the message has relevance. This way we can create on
the fly a different ad for a different household." Example: a diaper
manufacturer could select households with babies while a dental adhesive
maker would pinpoint their denture-wearing neighbors, based on information
that consumers provided. Sealy says that five years or so from now Ad-ID and
RFID systems will be used together: "Then we could measure whether we
delivered the commercial to you, and, as I am monitoring your pantry,
whether you bought the product, too." (Reuters/USA Today 18 Aug 2004)
//www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2004-08-18-rfid-plus-ads_xhtm


You have been reading excerpts from NewsScan:
NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class
organization making significant and sustained contributions to the
effective management and appropriate use of information technology.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the text, html, or handheld versions
of NewsScan Daily, send the appropriate subscribe or unsubscribe messages
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NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html

*

>From Edupage

FCC TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE OF WIRELESS OUTAGES
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled that wireless
carriers must submit reports to government officials concerning
significant outages in service, though those reports will be kept from
public view. Disclosure of outages had been in place for wireless
carriers since 1991. After September 11, 2001, however, the information
in the reports was deemed potentially useful to would-be terrorists,
and the reports ended. Noting that emergency services increasingly
depend on wireless communication, and that disclosure of outages
promotes a more stable wireless network, the FCC will again require the
reports from wireless carriers. The Department of Homeland Security and
wireless telecoms argued that the reports pose a security risk and that
a voluntary reporting system would be preferable. In a concession, the
FCC agreed that the reports will be confidential and will not be
subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
Wired News, 11 August 2004
http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,64528,00.html

and in a related story

FCC EXEMPTS HIGHER ED FROM CALEA
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a preliminary
ruling that exempts colleges and universities from costly projects to
reengineer computer networks to comply with the Communications
Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). CALEA requires telecom
companies to build their networks in such a way that federal officials
can eavesdrop on phone conversations and e-mail exchanges with proper
authority, and some have called for the FCC to rule that CALEA should
also cover computer networks that carry Voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP) telephone service. The FCC will not make a final decision on
CALEA until late this fall, but in the meantime it has issued a ruling
that identifies certain entities that would be exempt from CALEA for
the purposes of VoIP phone service. Aside from higher education,
exempted entities include libraries, hotels, and coffee shops.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 August 2004 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/08/2004081301n.htm

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO COPYRIGHT EDUCATION
Citing what it calls one-sided information about copyright presented by
groups including the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Motion
Picture Association of America (MPAA) to school students, the American
Library Association (ALA) will release its own educational materials to
schools. ALA officials said that copyright information given to schools
from industry groups neglects to address such issues as fair use and
that the bias of industry groups doesn't serve the best interests of
school kids. A representative of the BSA said his group's materials
are not biased and that they focus simply on right versus wrong rather
than on covering the range of relevant issues. Darrell Luzzo, vice
president of education for Junior Achievement Worldwide, which last
year cosponsored a program with the MPAA on copyright education, said
that if his organization were going to repeat the project, it "would
want to talk more about fair use." Discussions with educators later
convinced Luzzo that the program should have been more broadly based
rather than focusing on just one side of the issue.
Wired News, 13 August 2004
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,64543,00.html


[iTunes Restrictions Continue To Fall]

DVD JON GOES AFTER AIRPORT EXPRESS
The Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon has published a software key for
Apple Computer's AirPort Express, a wireless device that allows users
to transmit songs from iTunes on a computer to a stereo. Jon Johansen,
now 20, found himself the subject of criminal prosecution as a
15-year-old when he published a key to the encryption for DVDs,
allowing users to make copies--legitimate or otherwise--of encrypted
DVDs. Ultimately, Johansen was acquitted of those charges. Johansen has
been an outspoken critic of proprietary software and voiced his support
on his Web site for a recent announcement from RealNetworks that they
had developed an application to allow their content to be played on
Apple's iPod music player. The software key that Johansen published
this week for the AirPort Express is the third time this year he has
defeated Apple's copy protections for music files. The new key,
according to some experts, could allow development of a range of
products from companies other than Apple that will work with the
AirPort Express device.
San Jose Mercury News, 12 August 2004
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9385704.htm


MICROSOFT TO OFFER BASIC WINDOWS XP IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

[Linux Forces Microsoft Prices Downward In Competition]

Microsoft will distribute a slimmed-down version of Windows XP in five
developing nations beginning this fall as part of the company's
ongoing efforts to facilitate computer use and literacy. Consumers in
Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia will see the so-called Windows XP
Starter Edition on PCs starting in October; the other two countries in
the program were not named. The Starter Edition of the operating system
has fewer features than the standard package, and versions are
customized for each country, including appropriate languages and items
such as screen saver photos that reflect the local landscape. Also part
of Microsoft's initiative is a program that offers free operating
systems and inexpensive Office software packages to certain schools in
67 developing countries. Prices for the Starter Edition were not
announced, though some reports indicated it might be about $36.
According to a spokesperson from Microsoft, the low price allows the
company to compete with Linux and may also discourage piracy, since
buyers of inexpensive, legitimate copies of the software are eligible
for patches and updates.
CNET, 11 August 2004
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5304023.html


UNLISTED PHONE NUMBERS PUBLISHED

[Ooops!]

Officials at Verizon Communications said this week that due to a
computer problem, phone numbers of as many as 12,000 Verizon customers
who asked that their phone numbers be unlisted may end up published in
phone directories. Verizon published at least 9,000 of the numbers in
its own directory that includes Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia,
but the company, which is required to disclose its customers' numbers
to competing directory services, inadvertently released as many as
12,000 unlisted numbers to other directories. Verizon has offered to
refund the fees that consumers pay to have their numbers unlisted or to
change customers' phone numbers free of charge if they so choose.
Officials from Verizon said the problem resulted from a conversion to a
new computer system.
Washington Post, 11 August 2004 (registration req'd)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55022-2004Aug10.html

[More Oopses!]

MICROSOFT IDENTIFIES PROBLEMS WITH SP2
Microsoft has released a list of about 50 applications, including some
of its own, that the company said will have problems working properly
with the long-awaited Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP. The service
pack include a number of important security upgrades that consumers
have been calling for, and SP2 was released to manufacturers earlier
this month. One of the changes, however, is that SP2 activates the
Windows firewall by default, and this firewall causes problems with a
number of applications because it affects their ability to receive data
over the Internet. The list of affected applications includes products
from Symantec, Computer Associates, and Macromedia, as well as several
products from Microsoft, including Visual Studio .Net, Operations
Manager, and SQL Server. Some companies have issued advisories to
employees not to install SP2 until all potential problems have been
identified, though others insist that the security benefits from the
service pack are more important than possible conflicts.
CNET, 16 August 2004
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5311280.html






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More Headline News Avoided By Most Of The Major U.S. Media


SEVERAL STRANGE POLITICAL DEALS STRUCK IN THESE OLYMPICS


OUSTED GREEK OLYMPIC LEADER OUTSTED/REINSTATED, LIKE APPLE'S STEVE JOBS

Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki was ousted and later reinstated
as head of Greek Olympic Committee.

In  1994,  she was named Vice - Chair of Harvard University's
John F. Kennedy School of Government.

In  1996, she was appointed President of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games'
Bid Committee.  In 1998, she was appointed Greek Ambassador at Large.

As of May 2000, she was President of the Athens 2004 Organizing
Committee for the Olympic Games.

She was the first woman in history to be president of a successful
Olympic bid committee, yet was forced out of her position as CEO
due to political infighting.  However, those who forced her out
never got the ball rolling and the games' preparations fell very
much behind until she was returned to her post as CEO after three
years of what can only be referred to as extreme political silliness
that was almost suicidal.  Rumors were already rampant that the
Olympics would be removed from Greece and awarded to one of the
other bidding countries before those who ousted her from the CEO
position after she won the bid finally realized there was actual
work to be done and reinstated her.

It is not only amazing that this sort of thing happens on a regular
basis, but that the news media regularly covers it up, especially
when the victim is a woman.

[It was nearly impossible to find even one article on this.]


and


Olympic Regulations Changed At the Last Minute

There have been any number of rule changes made for this Olympics,
many of them under public suspicion of being politically oriented,
or occidented, as the case may be, especially in the table tennis,
or ping-pong, world events.  Not only have nearly half the points,
from 21 to 11, been cut out, but the ball has been made larger.  A
greater concern on the geopolitical spectrum has been to to eschew
the possibility of an all Chinese final match, as has happened for
both the men's and women's doubles teams in half of the events for
the history of table tennis as an Olympic event.  This year all of
a country's teams must play in the same "draw," which now provides
for a 0% chance that two teams from the same country can make this
year's championship match, even if those two teams are the best.

Many other events have had their rules changed, some at such times
as only a few days before the events, thus requiring Olympians for
various events to make last minute alterations in strategies which
have been in preparation for four years.  Some of these changes in
their programs have been fatal to their chances to medal and maybe
even more possibly fatal to their health than we would like.  This
safety item, much less the these political ramifications, had been
swept under the carpet by the major news coverage.

They say the safety and integrity of the competitors is a primary,
if not THE primary concern, but such rule changes make you wonder,
especially when such changes are constantly being made, even right
up to the very last days.  Perhaps the rules for each Olympics can
be announced when the site is picked, or at the latest by the time
the previous Olympics closing ceremonies take place, thus giving a
more level playing field for preparations, and for contesting rule
changes well beforehand.

Many of these changes have been made in the high visibility sports
such as gymnastics, table tennis and volleyball, and have changed a
lot of the endurance factors to non-endurance factors making teams
and individuals have to concentrate more on tactics than strategy,
but making for a more televisual event to sell on the open market.
In some cases this is like asking a Marathon runner to think along
the lines of a sprinter just for increased entertainment value.

In addition, those who watch those extemely high-visibility events
such as gymnastics have probably noticed the lack of the extensive
use of "release moves" from the high bar for men or in uneven bars
for women.  These release moves have been the most exciting and/or
the highest point value elements in previous Olympics, but so far,
they they have severely reduced in the planned routines.  This was
due to severe rule changes that disallowed the traditional dropped
scores of the worst performance in each event, thus encouraging an
extraordinary effort in the team competitions, but you might be in
for a disappointment this year if you expect performances similar,
or exceeding those of previous Olympics.


Last night's women's team finals turned out to be a nearly perfect
example of this, as the Romanian team won with a most conservative
set of routines, but performed without major mishaps.  The Chinese
had much more spectacular routines, which might have won under the
old scoring system, but a spectacular fall removed all hopes to do
well enough for any medal at all.

***

In addition, there have been announcements that Greece's premiere
athlete[s] will be arrested and taken to court for not showing up
for manadatory drug tests.  It seems a little strange for private
organizations such as Olympic Committees to be able to enforce an
entirely internal regulation as if it were a state criminal act.

[The previous was composed before the events]

Announcements by the IOC [International Olympic Committee] today,
in various venues, say the IOC is no longer pursuing the two they
have been after since the Olympics opened, finally admitting that
they have no authority over the two since withdrawing officially,
but offical state's attorneys of Greece are not giving up, and at
the moment are reported to have opened yet another investigation.
Thus is appears that the Greek Olympic Committee still has a long
arm that reaches beyond its own official jurisdiction.


SIMPLE SOLUTION OF THE WEEK

"Only wimps use backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff
on FTP, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)" - Linus Torvalds


***

ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK

Tobacco, one of the legally accepted "drugs of our civilization,"
yields 20 times the profit per acre of raising the usually grains
and other similar crops. . .in case you were wondering just where
all those billions of dollars came from for the tobacco companies
to do all that lobbying, advertizing, and to hire scientists, who
either proclaimed that tobacco was neither addictive nor harmful,
or who hid the evidence that it was addictive and harmful.

*

ONE IN FIVE ENGINEERS LACKS 4-YEAR DEGREE  [From Newsscan, as above]
It turns out that more than 20% of U.S. science and engineering
workers do not have a four-year bachelor's degree, according to a new
report issued by the National Science Foundation. Five percent hold high
school diplomas and 17% have two-year associate's degrees. The study
indicates that in the in the computer and math science fields, the
percentage of those without four-year degrees is about 40%.The news
highlights a growing crisis in the U.S., as the number of science and
engineering doctorate degrees granted continues to fall and the number of
educational visas issued to foreign candidates also shrinks. Despite these
dismal figures, NSF data indicates that graduate enrollment in science and
engineering programs reached a record of nearly 455,000 students in fall
2002. (CNet News.com 16 Aug 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-1022-5312309.html

A note on statistics in general:  I have noticed, even in years
without major elections, that a huge amount of the "information"
we received from Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw is a
direct quotation from press releases, much of which are provided
by politicians to support their own positions.

Speaking of Rather, Brokaw and Jennings, not to mention Lehrer
on PBS, their average age is well over twice the median age in
the United States, and three times the world at large.

***

ODD QUOTATION OF THE WEEK

"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe
everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking."
Alfred Korzybski, founder of Semantics [along with S. I. Hawyakawa]

*

FREE TRADE FINALLY REACHES THE CITIZEN LEVEL

Illinois has legislation to allow its citizens to buy drugs
from Canada and other countries.  Of course, the companies
who have been charging twice as much for the same drugs IN
the U.S. as elsewhere are complaining, as is the FDA [Food
and Drug Administration, since this bypasses them and their
authoritarian regime structures.

***


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