[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Dec 1 09:54:02 PST 2004
GWeekly_December_01.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, December 01, 2004 PT1
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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
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
*Permanent Requests For Assistance:
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*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
87 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
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*eBook Milestones
Today Marks Our 100th eBook In Finnish!!!
14,572 eBooks As Of Today!!!
11,509 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
We Have Now Produced about 3,664 eBooks In 2004
We Are Over 1/2 Way from 14,000 to 15,000
428 to go to 15,000!!!
We have now averaged ~436 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
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 10.75 months of this year, we produced 3664 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to December 2002 to produce our first 3,664 eBooks!
That's 47 WEEKS as Compared to ~31.5 Years!
87 New eBooks This Week
72 New eBooks Last Week
290 New eBooks This Month [Nov]
341 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
3664 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
11509 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 46.75 Months!
14,571 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
10,565 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,006 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
386 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
We're still keeping up with Moore's Law!
Moore's Law 12 month percentage = 64%
Moore's Law 18 month percentage = 116%
[100% of Moore's Law = doubling every 18 months]
[These figures are being research, may be a program error]
*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
Since completing its first eBook (#3320) on March 13th, 2001, the
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Of that total, there are 5,493 unique, brand-new titles.
Projects completed since the beginning of the year:
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Oct 2004 - 263
Nov 2004 - 280 (as of 30 Nov 04)
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
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PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections holdings
of 15 collections. . .with this week's listing as:
Alex-Wire Tap Collection, 2,036 HTML eBook Files
Black Mask Collection, 12,000 HTML eBook Files
The Coradella Bookshelf Collection, 141 eBook Files
DjVu Collection, 272 PDF and DJVU eBook Files
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Tony Kline Collection, 223 HTML eBook Files
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CIA's Electronic Reading Room, 2,019 Reference Files
=======Grand Total Files==========106,107 Total Files=====
These eBooks are catalogued as per the instructions of
their donors: some are one file per book, some have a
file for each chapter, and some even have a file for a
single page or poem. . .or are overcounted for reasons
I have not mentioned. . .each of which could cause the
overcounting or duplication of numbers.
If we presume 2 out of 3 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
35,360 Unique eBooks
If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
26,527 Unique eBooks
***
Today Is Day #336 of 2004
This Completes Week #47 and Month #10.75
35 Days/07 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
429 Books To Go To #15,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
78 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 47 weeks of this year, we have produced 3664 new eBooks.
It took us from 1971 to 2000 to produce our FIRST 3664 eBooks!!!
That's 47 WEEKS as Compared to ~31.5 YEARS!!!
With 14,571 eBooks online as of December 01, 2004 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.69 from each book,
for Project Gutenberg to have currently given away $1,000,000,000,000
[One Trillion Dollars] in books.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
This "cost" is down from about $.95 when we had 10,069 eBooks a year ago
Can you imagine ~14,571 books each costing ~$.26 less a year later???
Or. . .would this say it better?
Can you imagine ~14,571 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???
At 14,571 eBooks in 33 Years and 04.75 Months We Averaged
436 Per Year [We do about 3/4 that much per month these days!]
36.1 Per Month
1.19 Per Day
At 3664 eBooks Done In The 336 Days Of 2004 We Averaged
11 Per Day
78 Per Week
341 Per Month
The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks'
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starts with the first Wednesday of January. January 7th was
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year of 2003 and began the production year of 2004 at noon.
This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
*Flashback!!!
3334 New eBooks So Far in 2004
It took us ~31 years for the first 3324 !
That's the 9.75 months of 2004 as Compared to ~31 years!!!
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
>From NewsScan:
THE IPOD HALO EFFECT
[Not to mention that people are reading eBooks on the iPods!]
The popularity of Apple's iPod music players is having an unexpected
effect -- six percent of iPod users report having dumped their old PCs for
Apple Macs, and an additional 7% say they're planning to do the same. Among
the reasons cited are ease of use, a focus on entertainment and the
perception of better security. Gene Munster, senior research analyst at
Piper Jaffray, which conducted the study, says the iPod halo effect will
boost Apple's bottom line for a while to come: "We're in the very early
innings of a multiyear trend." However, to maintain the buzz, Apple will
need to stay ahead of the pack with new design trends. "They've got to keep
that 'cool factor' going. If they don't, they're in trouble," says Munster.
(CNet News.com 24 Nov 2004)
<http://news.com.com/Survey+Some+iPod+fans+dump+PCs+for+Macs/2100-1042_3-546
5935.html>
PC MAKERS FACING HARD TIMES
[And we wondered why Intel was withholding the 4Ghz Pentium a year ago.]
Three of the top 10 PC makers may drop out of the global PC market by
2007, starved by stagnant demand during the 2006-2008 timeframe, according
to a new report by Gartner. The near-term forecast is a little brighter --
Gartner predicts annual shipment increases of 11.3% and annual revenue
increases of about 4.7% between 2003 and 2005. But by 2006, most
corporations and consumers will have replaced their oldest computers,
completing the latest PC replacement cycle, which occurs about every four
years for PCs and every three years for laptops. Emerging markets such as
China will boost revenues during that time, but not enough to offset slack
demand elsewhere, says Gartner, which declined to say which companies might
drop out of the PC race. "The bottom line here is that the vendor landscape
will look very different in the next couple of years," says a Gartner
analyst, adding that there's still time for PC makers to enact cost-cutting
measures that would enable them to survive the anticipated drought.
(CNet News.com 29 Nov 2004)
<news.com.com/Are+PC+makers+poised+for+major+hit/2100-1003_3-5470068.html>
CYBERSPACE ACTIVISM
[More below in Edupage section]
The German-based Web portal Lycos Europe is offering a screensaver
program that chokes spam servers by flooding them with junk traffic. The
company argues that what it's doing is perfectly legal, but former FCC chief
technologist David Farber comments: "You don't stop a bad thing by being bad
yourself. The idea of somebody coming and hitting you and you hitting back,
you both end up very hurt. It just aggravates an already serious problem."
And noted computer security expert Dorothy Denning, a professor of defense
analysis at the Navy Postgraduate School, points out that cyberspace
activism of the kind offered by Lycos Europe is likely to have only minimal
impact on spam because "the cost of adding extra bandwidth may be worth the
reward" that spammers get from their activities. She adds: "The interesting
question is whether or not that company [an anti-spam activist company]
might be liable under some law, and would probably be liable, certainly, at
least under a lawsuit by the spammers." (AP 30 Nov 2004)
<www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2004-11-30-lycos-attack-spam_x.htm?csp=34>
LOWER PRICES ON THIN TVs (BUY NOW!)
A glut of liquid crystal display (LCD) flat-panel televisions will
cause prices to drop by as much as 30 percent over the course of 2005;
however, electronics retailers would just as soon not hear that kind of
talk, and Lee Simonson of Best Buy admits: "We do not want to talk about
predictions of price drops. We want people to buy now." According to a
survey by the Consumer Electronics Association, the most desired holiday
gift this season is a plasma TV, but Mike Fidler, an executive vice
president at Sony, says that LCD TV's will drop so much in price that plasma
will go away in three to five years.(AP/New York Times 29 Nov 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/29/technology/29lcd.html>
WIRELESS IN PHILADELPHIA
Verizon has struck a deal with the city of Philadelphia to provide
wireless Internet access as a municipal service. A spokeswoman for
Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street says the two parties "reached an
understanding that protects our interests and allows us to move forward with
the Wireless Philadelphia initiative." Under the Pennsylvania legislation,
any political subdivision would have to get the permission of the local
telephone company to provide a telecommunications service for a fee,
including broadband Internet, and if the company rejects the plan it would
have to offer a similar service within 14 months.
(San Jose Mercury News 30 Nov 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10305668.htm>
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
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*
>From Edupage
SCREEN SAVER TO FIGHT SPAM
A new screensaver by Internet portal Lycos is designed to fight spam by
running up the costs of operating Web sites that sell goods commonly
advertised in spam e-mail. Rather than targeting the e-mails themselves
or their sources, which are often spoofed, the new tactic focuses on
the Web sites where spam directs consumers. Using blacklists--from
organizations such as Spamcop--of companies that profit from spam, the
screensaver sends repeated requests to those companies' Web sites for
information about their products. The goal, according to officials at
Lycos, is not to overload the sites to the point of failure but to
drive up the costs for companies to respond to so many hits on their
Web sites. The screensaver also has been shown to slow traffic on some
targeted sites by as much as 85 percent. The hope, according to Malte
Pollmann of Lycos Europe, is that there will be a general decline in
the amount of spam sent if the vendors who benefit from spam are forced
to pay much higher costs to maintain their Web sites. The screensaver,
which can be downloaded beginning in December, is available to all
users, regardless of whether they are registered users of Lycos.
BBC, 29 November 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4051553.stm
You have been reading excerpts from Edupage:
If you have questions or comments about Edupage,
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-958352.html
or send e-mail to: edupage at educause.edu
To SUBSCRIBE to Edupage, send a message to
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***
*Headline News Avoided By Most Of The Major U.S. Media
20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF BHOPAL, AS MANY WERE KILLED AS IN 9/11
It would appear that the death rate from the Union Carbide plant
in Bhopal 20 years ago this week was nearly identical to the total
deaths from the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center 3 years ago.
In addition, some 11,000 people Bhopal residents were disabled by
the poison gas that was created when water mixed with pesticide.
[Since I first wrote this, further ressearch shows over 20,000 died.
Any further data would be appreciated]
Recent televised reports show that Union Carbide left behind clearly
marked poisons when they abandoned the Bhopal plant shortly after.
Apparently the Union Carbide headquarters of Danbury, Connecticut,
the major stockholder of the Bhopal Union Carbide India Limited plant,
appears to have paid a fee to the government of India, and considers
the case closed, even though thousands of Bhopal families appear to
have been ignored, and the neither the contamination from the explosion
nor from the other poisons intentionally left behind have been cleaned up,
even to this day.
*STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
REWRITING THE HISTORY OF THE 1968 CHICAGO POLICE RIOTS
"The police and demonstrators were going after each other.
The protestors were provoking the police." Tom Brokaw 11/16/04
This seems to be quite at odds with his former commentaries,
which you can find searching "tom brokaw police chicago 1968"
in which he says he fought with his parents "we had a huge fight"
and that he thought his "parents who were FDR working class democrats"
"would be very sympathetic towards the demonstrators."
Apparently you really do get more conservative as you get older.
[1968 was Mr. Brokaw's first year of convention coverage.]
[By the way, as predicted here, it appears that both Tom Brokaw
and Dan Rather will be marching off to join the other dinosaurs
in the near future, and I predict Peter Jennings will join them.
The average age of these three passed double the median age of
the United States years ago when the median was 33 years of age.
Their average age is now around 73 years old. Mr. Lehrer is
only just now coming up to 70.]
and
>From a Nina Totenberg, Washingon, November 30, 2004, NPR Report:
A representative of a Georgia school district who fired a
teacher/coach in an alleged Title IX retaliation said the
case could not have been made "more clearer." This case,
in its entirety, is making its way to the Supreme Court.
and
John Wayne on "stealing" the America from its original inhabitants:
Q: "For years American Indians have played an important -- if subordinate --
role in your Westerns. Do you feel any empathy for them?"
A: "I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them,
if that's what you're asking. Our so-called stealing of this country from
them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who
needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for
themselves."
*PREDICTION OF THE WEEK
New news anchors for the major networks will be being tested
on all the networks in the coming year or two, but the old
ones will be invited back for the next election.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
INCREASING REPORTS OF AIDS IN AFRICA ON WORLD AIDS DAY
Sites in Africa are reporting 50% testing positive for HIV/AIDS,
and that more women are testing positive than men.
FIREFOX TAKES A BITE OUT OF IE
The percentage of Web surfers using Microsoft's Internet Explorer
browser has fallen below 90%, with many of those users switching over to
Mozilla's Firefox. According to a survey by OneStat.com, IE's market share
has dropped 5% since May to 88.9%, while Mozilla browsers -- including
Firefox -- have garnered an additional 5% in the same time period. Firefox's
goal is to capture 10% of the market by the end of 2005. OneStat compiled
the statistical comparisons from two million Internet users in 100 countries.
(BBC News 24 Nov 2004) <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4037833.stm>
WHERE ARE SADDAM'S BILLIONS?
The UN has admitted that it appears Saddam Hussein conned/bilked
various UN committees out of a total of at least $21 billion.
So far there appears to be little or no trace of where he put it.
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***
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/11/wo_hellweg111904.asp?trk=3Dnl
=20
Is 'Fair Use' in Peril?
The far-reaching Intellectual Property Protection Act would deny
consumers many of the freedoms they take for granted.
By Eric Hellweg
November 19, 2004
Do you like fast-forwarding through commercials on a television
program you've recorded? How much do you like it? Enough to go to
jail if you're caught doing it? If a new copyright and
intellectual property omnibus bill sitting on Congress's desk
passes, that may be the choice you'll face.
How can this be possible? Because language that makes
fast-forwarding through commercials illegal-no doubt inserted at
the behest of lobbyists for the advertising industry-was inserted
into a bill that would allow people to fast forward past
objectionable sections of a recorded movie (and I bet you already
thought that was OK). And that's but one, albeit scary, scenario
that may come to pass if the Intellectual Property Protection Act
is enacted into law. Deliberations on this legislation will be
one of the tasks for the lame-duck Congress that commenced this week.
[More available on reqest to me]
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/11/wo_hellweg111904.asp?trk=3Dnl
=20
ANTI-EVOLUTION TEACHINGS GAIN FOOTHOLD IN U.S. SCHOOLS
from San Francisco Chronicle
Dover, Pa. -- The way they used to teach the origin of the species to high
school students in this sleepy town of 1,800 people in southern
Pennsylvania, said local school board member Angie Yingling
disapprovingly, was that "we come from chimpanzees and apes."
Not anymore.
The school board has ordered that biology teachers at Dover Area High
School make students "aware of gaps/problems" in the theory of evolution.
Their ninth-grade curriculum now must include the theory of "intelligent
design," which posits that life is so complex and elaborate that some
greater wisdom has to be behind it.
http://snipurl.com/azil
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