[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Dec 22 10:07:12 PST 2004
GWeekly_December_22.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, December 22, 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
*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
*Permanent Requests For Assistance:
*Donation Information
*Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections
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*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
2 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
59 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
14,768 eBooks As Of Today!!!
11,706 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
We Have Now Produced about 3,861 eBooks In 2004
We Are Already 3/4 % of the Way from 14,000 to 15,000
We Are 95% of the Way from 10,000 to 15,000
232 to go to 15,000!!!
We have now averaged ~442 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971!!!
We Are Averaging About 340 eBooks Per Month This Year
About 77 Per Week
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
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***Introduction
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 11.60 months of this year, we produced 3861 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to December 2002 to produce our first 3,861 eBooks!
That's 58 WEEKS as Compared to ~31.5 Years!
61 New eBooks This Week
58 New eBooks Last Week
197 New eBooks This Month [Dec]
333 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
3861 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
11706 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 47.40 Months!
14,768 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
10,750 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,018 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
392 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 = 119%
[100% of Moore's Law = doubling every 18 months]
[There may be some need to refine our program for these figures]
*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
Since completing its first eBook (#3320) on Mar 13th, 2001, the
Distributed Proofreaders team has now produced its 6,010th eBook (#14411).
Of that total, there are 5,637 unique, brand-new titles.
Projects completed since the beginning of the year:
Jan 2004 - 267
Feb 2004 - 421
Mar 2004 - 365
Apr 2004 - 276
May 2004 - 235
Jun 2004 - 232
Jul 2004 - 231
Aug 2004 - 220
Sep 2004 - 182
Oct 2004 - 263
Nov 2004 - 280
Dec 2004 - 166 (as of 22 Dec)
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
[John just got married, and we we're still giving
him a few weeks off. . . . Congratulations!!!!!!!]
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
eBooks at Adelaide Collection, 27,709 eBook Files
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Swami Center Collection, 78 HTML eBook Files
Tony Kline Collection, 223 HTML eBook Files
Widger Library, 2,600 HTML eBook Files
CIA's Electronic Reading Room, 2,019 Reference Files
=======Grand Total Files==========106,475 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
35,491 Unique eBooks
If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
26,619 Unique eBooks
***
Today Is Day #357 of 2004
This Completes Week #50 and Month #11.60
14 Days/10 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
232 Books To Go To #15,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
77 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 50 weeks of this year, we have produced 3,861 new eBooks.
It took us from 1971 to 2000 to produce our FIRST 3,861 eBooks!!!
That's 50 WEEKS as Compared to ~31.5 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #3861
Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete, by Stewarton 3899
[Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London]
Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Volume 7, by Stewarton 3898
...
Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Volume 1, by Stewarton 3892
Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan 3891
Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Volume 7, by Madame Campan 3890
...
Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Volume 1, by Madame Campan 3884
Secret Memoirs of Louis XV/XVI, Complete, by Madame du Hausset, et al 3883
Being Secret Memoirs of Madame du Hausset, Lady's Maid to Madame de Pompadour,
and of an Unknown English Girl & The Princess Lamballe
[Author: Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" & the Princess Lamballe]
The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7, by Hausset et al. 3882
...
The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1, by Hausset et al. 3876
The Memoirs of Louis XIV, by Duc de Saint-Simon 3875
[Title: The Memoirs of Louis XIV, and His Court and The Regency, Complete]
The Memoirs of Louis XIV., Volume 15, by Duc de Saint-Simon 3874
...
The Memoirs of Louis XIV., Volume 1, by Duc de Saint-Simon 3860
With 14,768 eBooks online as of December 22, 2004 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.68 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 $.93 when we had 10,750 eBooks a year ago
Can you imagine ~14,768 books each costing ~$.25 less a year later???
Or. . .would this say it better?
Can you imagine ~14,768 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???
At 14,768 eBooks in 33 Years and 05.60 Months We Averaged
441 Per Year [We do about 3/4 that much per month these days!]
36.8 Per Month
1.21 Per Day
At 3861 eBooks Done In The 357 Days Of 2004 We Averaged
11 Per Day
77 Per Week
341 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.
***
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
>From NewsScan:
JUDGE SLAMS SPAMMERS WITH $1-BILLION JUDGMENT
[More below in Edupage section]
A federal judge in Iowa has awarded a small ISP more than $1 billion
in damages in what's believed to be the largest judgment ever against
spammers. The case was brought by Robert Kramer, whose company provides
e-mail service to about 5,000 customers, and who filed suit after his
inbound mail servers were jammed with as many as 10 million spam-mails a
day in 2000. Citing federal racketeering laws (RICO) and the Iowa Ongoing
Criminal Conduct Act, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Wolle ordered AMP
Dollar Savings of Mesa, Ariz., to pay $720 million; Cash Link Systems of
Miami, Fla., $360 million; and TEI Marketing Group, also of Florida,
$140,000. "It's definitely a victory for all of us that open up our e-mail
and find lewd and malicious and fraudulent e-mail in our boxes every day,"
said Kramer, who is unlikely to ever collect on the judgments.
(AP/Wall Street Journal 20 Dec 2004)
<http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110349923676804327,00.html> (sub req'd)
CHINATECH ON THE RISE
Journalist Evan Ramstad notes that China's 250 million users (about one-fifth
of the country's total population) far surpass those of any other country
and that China's technological rise is happening faster than it did elsewhere
in Asia: "China passed the U.S. in unit consumption of TV sets two years ago
as household penetration of TVs passed 90%, closing in on the near ubiquity
of TVs in developed countries. If population trends hold, China is unlikely
to be challenged as the world's largest market for TVs until the middle
of the century, when India is expected to become the most populous country.
And when final figures emerge shortly, we're likely to learn that China
passed the U.S. this year as the world's top PC maker, another change
unlikely to be challenged for years to come."
(Wall Street Journal 20 Dec 2004)
<http://www.wsj.com>
EBAY PROTESTS EXECUTIVE'S ARREST IN INDIA
EBay is outraged by the arrest of Avnish Bajaj, the Indian-born and
Harvard-educated chief of the company's India auction site Baazee.com, in a
case involving the sale of a video clip of a teenage couple engaged in
illicit acts. EBay says the video clip was never shown on the site and that
the seller had merely offered it to buyers with a description of its content,
but the law under which the arrest makes publishing or transmitting obscene
material in any electronic form punishable by up to five years in jail.
(New York Times 21 Dec 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/technology/21ebay.html>
BATTLE IN BANGALORE: MICROSOFT WINS
Microsoft has won a battle against open source software supporters in
Bangalore, India, a high-tech hub whose local authorities have selected
Microsoft as their vendor of choice software for networking the state's
utilities and services in an e-governance project for the 55 million people
of Karnataka state. Microsoft sold software at 45 percent of the market
price to the private company executing the Bangalore project, a move the
company's critics derided as merely a trick to tie large populations to
proprietary software. Defending his decision to choose Microsoft, Indian
official Rajiv Chawla points out that Microsoft is "quite popular even in
villages," and adds: "Let open source become so popular, then we will have
no problem using it." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 20 Dec 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10459988.htm>
AUTOMATED MEDICATION WORSE THAN THE DISEASE?
A report from U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), a nonprofit group that sets
standards for the drug industry, says that as more hospitals have
implemented automated systems for administering drugs the number of errors
associated with them has risen. USP vice president Diane Cousins says, "It
would seem logical that applying computer technology to the medication use
process would have a significant positive impact in preventing medication
errors. Yet, depending on the computer's design or user competence, new
points of potential errors can emerge." Kenneth Kizer of the National
Quality Forum agrees with Cousins: "Technology offers great opportunity to
reduce errors, but it's not a panacea. You can't just throw a computerized
system in and expect that everything's fixed. It has to be done right. The
technology is only as good as the people who use it."
(Washington Post 20 Dec 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15178-2004Dec20.html>
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' OF GREENER GADGETS
The California Energy Commission Wednesday unanimously approved
standards to be phased in beginning in 2006 that would require household
appliances sold in the state, including televisions, VCRs, DVD players and
cell phone chargers, to run on one to three watts. Even when idle, such
appliances now typically gobble up two to 10 watts. Commissioners estimate
that compliance with the new guidelines will save commercial and
residential power customers more than $3 billion over 15 years.
(Los Angeles Times 17 Dec 2004)
<http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-energy17dec17,1,5732717.story?coll=
la-headlines-technology>
WHAT PROSPECT FOR CHANGE IN COPYRIGHT POLICY?
On the issue of protecting music and movies from Internet piracy,
Senator Orrin Hatch (R, UT), a songwriter himself, has been the
entertainment industry's most powerful ally in Congress, but in 2005 Sen.
Arlen Specter (R, PA) will replace Hatch as chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee. Will there be much change? One aide says that Specter "has been a
follower rather than a leader on these issues" and therefore might let Hatch
keep holding the reins. However, David Green of the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA) predicts that Specter will rise to the
occasion: "Copyright issues are important and they're going to percolate up,
and it's really impossible for him to ignore them. He might be right now
more interested in something else, but because these issues are important to
America they are going to be important to Arlen Specter." (Washington Post
16 Dec 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4003-2004Dec16.html>
SEARCHING FOR THE FUTURE OF TV
The startup search engine Blinkx will allow users to search the Web for
selected video clips from 15 television channels, so that, for example, if
you type in "Kofi Annan" Blinkx will offer a selection of digitized clips
cued up to the point where the U.N. secretary general is mentioned. Coming
soon with similar services: Yahoo, Google, and Microft. Blinkx, which has
analyzed and indexed 42,000 hours of video, says "fair use" provisions of
copyright law allow it to show a clip of up to 30 seconds. But attorney
Daniel Harris, an intellectual property attorney, warns: "It definitely
sounds like an area where there could be lawsuits."
(Wall Street Journal 16 Dec 2004)
<http://www.wsj.com>
GEICO CASE AGAINST GOOGLE DISMISSED BY JUDGE
A federal district court judge in Virginia has dismissed a key claim in
the trademark infringement suit brought against Google by Geico, the auto
insurance company. Geico had argued that the Google practice that allows
Geico's competitors to buy ads linked to searches for "Geico" and "Geico
Direct" confuses Web surfers who are looking specifically for Geico, but the
judge ruled that there was not enough evidence the Google practice actually
confuses consumers. One intellectual property attorney not involved in the
case predicts: "It will not be binding precedent. That's how cases get to
the Supreme Court."(New York Times 15 Dec 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/technology/15cnd-google.html?oref=login>
ANOTHER ROUND IN THE APPLE-VS.-REAL NETWORKS FIGHT
Apple has begun blocking the technology that RealNetworks created to
evade the copy-protection shield used by Apple's iPod. When RealNetworks
introduced its Harmony technology this summer, it hoped to dissolve some of
the barriers created by incompatible, proprietary digital music standards,
and said it had reverse-engineered Apple's copy-protection code to allow
songs purchased from non-Apple online outlets to be playable on the iPod. To
deal with Apple's new move, RealNetworks now says it "will look at the Apple
upgrade and see how it'll make Harmony work once again with the iPod."
(AP/San Jose Mercury News 15 Dec 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10425219.htm>
CONROVERSY OVER WIRELESS PHONE DIRECTORY
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wants the cellular
phone industry to discard its plans to create a directory assistance system
for wireless phone numbers because there are "too many unknowns and dangers
and too few protections at this point." But Kathleen Pierz, a Michigan
analyst specializing in directory assistance counseling, says there are
plenty of safeguards: "This is so buttoned up from a customer point of view,
people don't have to worry. Blumenthal fears that a list of wireless numbers
would inevitably be sold to telemarketers: "If the lists are there, they
will be sold. They are so valuable. No cell phone company will resist the
temptation to sell those lists for the huge profits." Pierz, however, points
out that there is no marketing value to such lists because of existing
federal laws preventing entities from calling a cell phone.
(AP/USA Today 21 Dec 2004)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2004-12-21-mobile411_x.htm>
ACACIA EXPANDS PATENT HOLDINGS
[The Speculators Take Over From The Inventors, Yet Again!]
Acacia Research, which has made a name for itself pursuing patent
infringement lawsuits, has acquired Global Patent Holdings, an umbrella
company whose holdings represent numerous high-tech patents. One of
Global Patent's companies, TechSearch, has already entered into
licensing deals with companies including Sony and Samsung. Previously,
Acacia has threatened or taken legal action against a range of
companies, alleging patent infringement for technologies that stream
media over the Web. Targets of that legislation have included
pornography Web sites, the Walt Disney Company, and colleges and
universities that use streaming media in online education. Acacia said
the new acquisition will expand its patent holdings to cover dozens of
technologies, or parts of them, including those related to P2P
communication and spreadsheet software. Paul Ryan, CEO of Acacia, said,
"We will continue to acquire additional portfolios, as Acacia moves
towards its goal of becoming the leading technology licensing company."
Analysts said Acacia's business model of acquiring patents and
earning revenues through licenses represents a growing trend in
the technology industry.
CNET, 16 December 2004
http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5494119.html
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*
>From Edupage
RICE RESEARCHERS DISCOVER GOOGLE SEARCH FLAW
[Google privacy issues, and new upgrades without telling the users]
Researchers at Rice University in November uncovered a security flaw in
Google's recently released desktop search tool. Google Desktop is a
downloadable program that creates an index of material on a user's
computer, including e-mail and individual documents. When that user
does a Google search of the Web, the application incorporates local
resources from the index in the results. In what began as a student
project to investigate how Google Desktop works, two students and a
computer science professor found that the application could be fooled
into sending results from a local index to Web sites, allowing a hacker
to see them. The problem would only reveal small portions of
information, and no attacks using the flaw have been reported. After
being notified by the researchers of the vulnerability in late
November, Google patched the flaw and began offering a new version of
the search tool in December. In addition, the application includes a
feature that allows Google to update the software without user input or
even knowledge about the upgrade.
New York Times, 20 December 2004 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20flaw.html
["The Paperless Society. . .at least for the military]
ARMY CONTRACTS FOR ELECTRONIC SYSTEM TO ELIMINATE PAPER
The U.S. Army has contracted with IBM and several smaller companies to
develop an entirely electronic records-management system to be
implemented over the next 10 years. Army personnel fill out
approximately 15 million forms each year, using as many as 100,000
different forms, for tasks including ordering supplies, keeping medical
records, and managing awards and citations. Under the current system,
forms must be printed out, hand-signed, and moved manually through all
applicable authorizations. The new system, part of the Army's Forms
Content Management Program, will eliminate much of that paperwork and
save large amounts of money. According to Jim Acklin, the director of
the project, the Army will save $1.3 billion a year in "cost
avoidance." In addition to IBM, the project includes services from
PureEdge and Silanis, two Canadian companies.
Reuters, 17 December 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=7126627
GOOGLE PARTNERS WITH LIBRARIES TO DIGITIZE CONTENT
Google has announced agreements with major libraries to digitize books
in their collections and make them available online. Google is funding
the project, which is said to have strong support from founders Larry
Page and Sergey Brin, who said that such dissemination of information
has always been one of their goals. Under the arrangements, Google
reportedly will scan all of the eight million books at Stanford
University's library and all of the University of Michigan's seven
million texts. For the others involved in the project--Harvard
University, Oxford University, and the New York Public Library--only
portions of the collections will be scanned. For books whose copyright
remains in effect, Google will scan the entire text but make available
only selected portions online. Books whose copyright has run out will
be available in their entirety. The announcement follows similar
programs from the Library of Congress as well as Amazon to digitize
content of books.
New York Times, 14 December 2004 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14cnd-goog.html
JUDGE HITS SPAMMERS WITH $1 BILLION FINE
A federal judge in Iowa has issued fines totaling $1 billion against
three spammers, marking what some observers believe is the largest
judgment handed down to spammers. The ruling came from a case filed by
Robert Kramer, operator of a small Internet service provider in eastern
Iowa. Kramer, whose company serves about 5,000 customers, filed suit
against 300 spammers, alleging that they send his subscribers upwards
of 10 million spam e-mails per day. The judge ordered three of the
defendants to pay damages under a state law that allows for fines of
$10 per spam message, and those amounts were then tripled under the
federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Cases
against other defendants are still pending. In his ruling Judge Charles
R. Wolle ordered Arizona-based AMP Dollar Savings to pay $720 million,
Florida-based Cash Link Systems to pay $360 million, and TEI Marketing
Group, also based in Florida, to pay $140,000. No attorneys for any of
the defendants were present during the trial, and the plaintiff's attorney
conceded it is unlikely his client will ever collect any of the damages.
Wall Street Journal, 20 December 2004 (sub. req'd)
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***
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
*Headline News Avoided By Most Of The Major U.S. Media
*STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
TIMSS = Third International Mathematics and Science Study
Two weeks ago nearly every new service had positive comments
about the improved U.S. students' TIMSS test scores that come
out every four years. Only one source I heard had the nerve
to say that the scores didn't really show any improvement,
while the rest seemed to reek of jingoism.
However, in reviewing the scores, it seems obvious that the
U.S. test scores in question, the 8th grade math scores,
were basically unchanged, moving up less than 1% from the
1999 score of 500 to the 2003 score of 504, out of 800.
This represents a change of 1/5 of 1% per year, which I
seriously doubt is within the statistical parameters of
the TIMSS testing methodologies.
Much more likely is the fact that the U.S. ranking has
been changed more by changes in the other countries,
both in terms of the changes the countries chosen for
the 2003 tests, and the performance changes of those
countries that stayed the same.
For example, some score changes in the top 10 of 1999:
Country 1999/2003 Change
Singapore 643/605 = 38
Korea 607/589 = 18
Japan 605/570 = 35
Hong Kong 588/586 = 3
Belgium (Fl) 565/537 = 28
Slovak Republic 547/508 = 39
Netherlands 541/536 = 5
Slovenia 541/493 = 48
Average 579.63/553.00 = 26.75
Thus we see that that most other countries changed
much more than did the U.S., which changed very little.
It would appear that the U.S. didn't really move on the
charts so much as other countries moved up and down past
the U.S.
In addition, it appears that the science scores were not
mentioned in these news reports, nor were the scores for
students in the lower grade classes. I will have to dig
them up to let you know more about them in later issues.
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