[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Oct 27 10:04:39 PDT 2004
GWeekly_October_27.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, October 27, 2004 PT1*
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******
Will Project Gutenberg be "Gone With The Wind?"
It would appear Project Gutenberg is under attack by the Stephens Mitchell
estate for Project Gutenberg of Australia's publication of Gone With The Wind.
If you would care to comment, or have any media or legal connections you would
like to make available to fight this, please let us know.
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
Please note we have new titles this week from:
Diderot
Shakespeare
Descartes
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.]
68 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones
11,163 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
We Have Now Produced about 3,318 eBooks In 2004
We Are Already ~1/4 of the Way from 14,000 to 15,000
14,225 eBooks As Of Today!!!
775 to go to 15,000!!!
We have now averaged ~427 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
*
HOT REQUEST FOR RUSSIAN TRANSLATOR
We are trying to start up a Project Gutenberg Russian Team,
and we need someone to translate simple email messages from
members of Project Gutenberg who want to provide a service
to the Russian Team, but who do not know Russian. . .these
people will be helping with scanning, finding books, etc.
The messages will be in MS Word's .doc format in cyrillic,
we need them translated into English, also in a .doc file.
Thanks!!! Contact Jared Buck <JBuck814366460 at aol.com>
***Introduction
[The Newsletter is now being sent in two sections, so you can directly
go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments,
News, Notes & Queries, and 2. Weekly eBook Update Listing.]
[Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a
few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us:
hart at pobox.com and gbnewby at pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.]
This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
Over Our 33 15/52 Year History, We Have Now Averaged About ~427 eBooks/Yr
And This Year We Are Averaging 3/4 of That New eBook Level. . .PER MONTH!
We Are Averaging About 342 eBooks Per Month This Year
About 79 Per Week
***
***Hot Requests New Sites and Announcements
Please visit and test our newest site:
pgcc.net [also available as gutenberg.us]
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center [PGCC]
[Under construction until opening November 4]
Please let us know of any eBook collections that
would be suitable for inclusion: public domain
or copyrighted, for which we ask permission.
or copyrighted with permission]
We also need help proofreading the various FAQ pages at this site, etc.
Only one more week to polish things up!!!
Thanks!!!!!!!
[We've left a couple typos on the front page,
just to make it easy for you to get started!]
*
There is a new experimental online reader available. Start from any
bibliographic record page, eg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300
Basically this paginates the txt file and remembers your last position
in a cookie so you can later resume reading where you left off.
Please test it. It should work with any book that has a text file
where the encoding is known.
MACHINE TRANSLATION
We are seeking as much information as possible on the various
approaches to Machine Translation. Any brand names or contact
information would be greatly appreciated.
***
Please use our new site for downloading DVD and CD images, etc.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cdproject
and
The PG bittorrent tracker is up and running.
Aaron Cannon has placed the CD and DVD there if anyone wants to test.
You can access it by visiting
http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu:6969
***
***
We are in the process of rewriting some of the general FAQs and
would appreciate help proofreading them over the next few months.
We've added some new FAQs and generally updated information
about Project Gutenberg. Take a look, and email Michael or
Greg with any suggestions or corrections. We'll have these
updated from time to time, now that we've passed #10,000.
A new set of these will be in the works when we pass #20,000.
http://www.gutenberg.org/about
***Continuing Requests and Announcements
We're building a team to read our eBooks into MP3 files
for the visually impaired and other audio book users.
Let us know if you'd like to join this group.
More information at http://www.gutenberg.org/audio
***
Project Gutenberg Needs DVD Burners
So far we have sent out 14 million eBooks via snailmail!!!
We currently have access to a dozen DVD burners. If you have a DVD burner
and are interested in lending a hand, please email Aaron Cannon
<cannona at fireantproductions.com>
We can set you up with images, or snail you these DVDs
for you to copy. You can either snail them directly
to readers whose addresses we can send you, or you can
do a stack of these and send the whole box back for reshipping.
We can also reimburse you for supplies and postage if you wish.
Please note that we can only use DVDs which are burnt in the dvd-r format,
as we have had some compatibility issues with the dvd+r format.
***
Project Gutenberg is seeking graphics we can use for our Web
pages and publicity materials. If you have original graphics
depicting Project Gutenberg themes, please contribute them!
To see some of what we have now, please see:
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/images
***
_I_ am still interested in a DVD that has an actual total
of 10,000 eBooks. . .or more. . .mostly for PR purposes--
if someone would be willing to make one. I think one is
on the way, but not here yet, in case you are interested.
*** PROJECT GUTENBERG IS SEEKING LEGAL BEAGLES
Project Gutenberg is seeking (volunteer) lawyers. We have
regular needs for intellectual property legal advice
(both US and international) and other areas. Please email
Project Gutenberg's CEO, Greg Newby <gbnewby AT pglaf.org> ,
if you can help.
This is much more important than many of us realize!
***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 9.75 months of this year, we produced 3318 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to July 2001 to produce our first 3,318 eBooks!
That's 42 WEEKS as Compared to ~31 Years!
69 New eBooks This Week
80 New eBooks Last Week
280 New eBooks This Month [Oct]
341 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
3318 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
11163 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 45.75 Months!
14,225 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
10,069 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,156 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 = 70%
Moore's Law 18 month percentage = 111%
[100% of Moore's Law = doubling every 18 months]
***
Since completing its first eBook (#3320) on March 13th, 2001, the
Distributed Proofreaders team has now produced its 5,543rd eBook (#13814).
Of that 5,543, there are 5,211 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 - 242 (as of Oct 26)
*
Check out our website at www.gutenberg.org, and see below to learn how
you can get INSTANT access to our eBooks via FTP servers even before
the new eBooks listed below appear in our catalog.
eBooks are posted throughout the week. You can even get daily lists.
Info on subscribing to daily, weekly, monthly Newsletters, listservs:
http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/subscribe-howto
or
http://www.gutenberg.org/subs.shtml
***
Today Is Day #300 of 2004
This Completes Week #42 and Month #9.75
70 Days/10 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
775 Books To Go To #15,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
79 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]
*** Permanent Requests For Assistance:
DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS NEEDS CONTENT, PROOFERS AND SCANNER TYPES
Please contact us at:
dphelp at pgdp.net
if you would like to know more about the Distributed Proofreaders.
Thanks to very good recent publicity, the Distributed Proofreading
project has greatly accelerated its pace. Please visit the site:
http://www.pgdp.net
for more information about how you can help a lot, by
simply proofreading just a few pages per day, or more.
If you have a book that has been scanned, but not yet run
through OCR (optical character recognition) or proofed,
and you would like the Distributed Proofreaders to work on it,
please email dphelp at pgdp.net and we will get things started.
Also, DP is seeking public domain books not already in the
Project Gutenberg collection. To see what is already online,
visit http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/GUTINDEX.ALL (a text file)
listing Project Gutenberg eBooks and is available for downloading.
Do you have Public Domain books you would like to see in the archive?
Can they be destructively scanned? If so send them to the Distributed
Proofreading Team! Please email dphelp at pgdp.net with your geographic
location. You will be given the address of the nearest high-speed scanner
(note that the high-speed scanner requires destruction of the book(s) which
will not be returned). We have high-speed scanners currently located in
the east, west and central portions of the US to make shipping easier.
Please make sure that any books you send are _not_ already in the archive
and please check them against David's "In Progress" list at:
http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html
to ensure no one is currently working on them. It would also be helpful if
you obtain copyright clearance before mailing the books, and send the 'OK'
lines to
dphelp at pgdp.net
Do you like to work on an entire book at once but don't have the time
or technology to do the scanning, OCR, and initial proofing yourself?
Distributed Proofreaders has the perfect solution! Just send us email
telling us that you are interested in post-processing and we will help
find a project you would like to work on.
***Donation Information
We Have Included Quick and Easy Ways to Donate. . .As Per Your Requests!
We Are Looking For Volunteers To Add eBooks In More Languages,
and in more formats, including music, artwork, movies, etc.
***
QUICK WAYS TO MAKE A DONATION TO PROJECT GUTENBERG
A. Send a check or money order to:
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
809 North 1500 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
USA
B. Donate by credit card online:
NetworkForGood:
http://www.guidestar.org/partners/networkforgood/donate.jsp?ein=64-6221541
or
PayPal to "donate at gutenberg.org":
http://www.paypal.com
/xclick/business=donate%40gutenberg.org&item_name=Donate+to+Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg's success is due to the hard work of thousands of
volunteers over more than 33 years. Your donations make it possible
to support these volunteers, and pay our few employees to continue the
creation of free electronic texts. We accept credit cards, checks and
transfers from any country, in any currency.
Donations are made to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
(PGLAF). PGLAF is approved as a charitable 501(c)(3) organization by
the US Internal Revenue Service, and has the Federal Employee Information
Number (EIN) 64-6221541.
For more information, including several other ways to donate, go to
http://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html or email donate at gutenberg.org
*Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections
*Mirror Site Information
Mirrors (copies) of the complete collection are available around the world.
To find the sites nearest you, go to:
http://www.gutenberg.org/MIRRORS.ALL
*Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks
http://www.gutenberg.org/find
allows searching by title, author, language and subject.
Use your Web browser or FTP program to visit our master download
site (or a mirror) if you know the file's name you want. Try:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs
or
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/
and then navigate to the appropriate directory and look for the first
five characters of the file's name. Note that updated eBooks usually
go in their original directory (e.g., etext99, etext00, etc.)
***
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
Statistical Review
In the 42 weeks of this year, we have produced 3318 new eBooks.
It took us from 1971 to 2000 to produce our FIRST 3318 eBooks!!!
That's 42 WEEKS as Compared to ~31 YEARS!!!
With 14,225 eBooks online as of October 27, 2004 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.70 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 $.99 when we had 10,069 eBooks a year ago
Can you imagine ~14,225 books each costing ~$.29 less a year later???
Or. . .would this say it better?
Can you imagine ~14,225 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???
At 14,225 eBooks in 33 Years and 03.75 Months We Averaged
427 Per Year [We do about 3/4 that much per month these days!]
35.5 Per Month
1.16 Per Day
At 3318 eBooks Done In The 300 Days Of 2004 We Averaged
11.0 Per Day
78.5 Per Week
338.4 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!!!
3318 New eBooks So Far in 2004
It took us ~31 years for the first 3318 !
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:
DESCENT FROM PRIVACY: A 'SLIPPERY SLOPE'
Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, warns: "Most
consumers don't fully understand the tradeoffs they're making with privacy."
As an example, she argues that the potential widespread use of the VeriChip
-- a tiny radio transmitter inserted under a person's skin -- is "a
nightmare situation" for privacy, because at first workers might be induced
to wear the devices simply to get high-security jobs but that eventually the
transmitters would be much more broadly required: "All of a sudden it
becomes mandatory for certain classes of people. I just see this as an
extremely slippery slope."(Christian Science Monitor 21 Oct 2004)
<http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2004/1021/p13s01-stct.html>
[and in a related story]
U.S. PASSPORTS GET CHIPPED
[If crooks read your passport, they will know when you are not at home.]
Beginning in January, diplomats and U.S. State Department employees
will be issued passports containing embedded RFID chips that will contain
the individual's name, address, date and place of birth, and a digital
photo. Ordinary citizens applying for new passports will get the high-tech
version starting in the spring. Civil liberties advocates have called the
new passports a "privacy horror," and point out that even if the data were
encrypted (and it's not), it would still be very easy to steal. "If 180
countries have access to the technology for reading this thing, whether or
not it is encrypted, from a security standpoint, that is a very leaky
system," says Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Lee Tien. "Strictly
from a technology standpoint, any reader system, even with security, that
was so widely deployed and accessible to so many people worldwide will be
subject to some very interesting compromises." Meanwhile, a travel privacy
expert says that in addition to identity thieves, commercial travel
companies, including hotels, will capture the data when people check in or
exchange currency. Intel RFID expert Roy Want says those fears are overblown,
but acknowledges some theft is possible: "In principle someone could rig up
a reader, perhaps in a doorway you are forcing people to go through.
You could read some of these tags some of the time." (Wired.com 21 Oct 2004)
<http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,65412,00.html>
ROBOT USE TO SURGE BY 2007
The use of robots to perform household tasks such as lawn-mowing,
vacuuming, guard duty and other chores is slated to increase sevenfold by
2007, according to the U.N.'s latest World Robotics Survey. The report says
607,000 automated domestic helpers are in use now, two thirds of them
purchased last year. Most of them -- 570,000 -- are robot vacuum cleaners,
and 37,000 of them are robotic lawn-mowers. While the report predicts that
vacuum cleaners will continue to hold the lead, sales of window-washing and
pool-cleaning robots are expected to take off. Meanwhile, sales of robotic
companions, like Sony's Aibo dog, are also expanding, with some 692,000
"entertainment robots" around the world. Japan remains home to about half
of the current 800,000 industrial robots, which are used primarily on
automobile assembly lines, but Europe and North America are catching up.
And "service robots" are branching out, performing such tasks as milking
cows, handling toxic waste, transporting medicine around hospitals and
assisting surgeons. By the end of this decade, robots will "also assist old
and handicapped people with sophisticated interactive equipment, carry out
surgery, inspect pipes and sites that are hazardous to people, fight fire
and bombs," says the report. (AP 21 Oct 2004)
<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041021/D85RQCJ82.html>
MUSIC INDUSTRY ON THE WRONG COURSE
Wharton business professor Joel Waldfogel says the music industry is
mistakenly pursuing a short-term strategy in backing the Inducing
Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004, which would hold liable any entity
that "intentionally aids, abets, induces or procures" copyrighted material.
Rather than fighting technological advances through litigation, the music
industry must come up with new business models -- for instance, taking
advantage of the Internet to slash its distribution costs. "Instead of
putting out CDs and shipping them on trucks, they can send them directly at
a very low cost. That does suggest a very different business model than
charging $15 or $20 for a CD. It might be a much more attractive way to do
things. Stuff that is easy to distribute wants to be free. Given that
force, I think [the recording industry] needs to come up with a new model
for generating income," says Waldfogel. (Knowledge at Wharton Oct 20-Nov 2 2004)
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1066
ADVERTISERS TRACK RADIO LISTENING HABITS
In 14 locations around the Washington area, a company called
MobilTrak has installed sensing devices on utility poles that pick up the
electronic signals from cars' antennas as they speed by and record which
station they're listening to. The monitoring process gives businesses a
welcome insight into the listening habits of their target audience and
helps them decide how to allocate their advertising budget, says MobilTrak
managing partner C. David Boice: "It's all about precision marketing. It's
about giving marketers real-time data about what's happening in certain
areas at certain times so they don't waste their advertising dollars." The
most enthusiastic adopters have been car dealerships, who generally believe
that 80% of their business comes from people who live or work within 10
miles of their location. One dealer found that the two stations he'd been
investing in -- a talk-personality station and a contemporary music station
-- didn't even rank in the top 10 for in-car radio listeners driving by his
dealership. "It was a real eye-opener," he says. Currently, MobilTrak picks
up only FM signals, but the company says it plans to introduce technology
that picks up AM and satellite station signals next spring.
(Washington Post 25 Oct 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60013-2004Oct24.html>
CYBERSECURITY LARGELY IGNORED BY INDIVIDUAL USERS
A new study by America Online and the National Cyber Security
Alliance indicates that about 80% of home PCs are infected with spyware,
but most users aren't even aware of it. And while 85% of users had
installed antivirus software, two-thirds of those had not updated it in
the past week. In addition, about 20% had an active virus on their machines
and two-thirds did not have a firewall installed. AOL chief trust officer
Tatiana Gau says the results highlight just how vulnerable the average
online user is to malicious hackers. "No consumer would walk down
the street waving a stack of cash or leave their wallet sitting in a
public place, but far too many are doing the exact same thing online.
Without basic protections like antivirus, spyware and firewall software,
consumers are leaving their personal and financial information at risk."
(CNet News.com 24 Oct 2004)
<http://news.com.com/Plague+carriers+Most+users+unaware+of+PC+infections/210
0-1029_3-5423306.html>
[More below on this one]
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
(i.e., with the word 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the subject line) to:
Text version: Send message to NewsScan at NewsScan.com
Html version: Send mail to NewsScan-html at NewsScan.com
NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html
*
>From Edupage
SPYWARE RAMPANT, USERS UNAWARE
Results of a recent study highlight the lack of awareness among a wide
majority of home computer users about malicious code and the tools they
could use to protect their computers against it. The study was carried
out by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA),
which is promoting October as National Cyber Security Awareness Month.
Technicians from AOL and NCSA went to the homes of more than 300
computer users and inspected their systems. Among the study's more
alarming findings were that 80 percent of home computers are currently
infected with spyware and that 90 percent of users with infected
machines were completely unaware of the infection. Authors of the
report's findings also noted that close to 60 percent of home users do
not know the difference between a firewall and antivirus software and
that two-thirds of users do not have a firewall installed. Although 85
percent of users had antivirus software installed on their computers,
only one-third had updated it within the previous week. Of the
computers studied, 20 percent had active viruses.
CNET, 25 October 2004
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-5423306.html
JUDGE ISSUES RESTRAINING ORDER ON SPYWARE
A federal judge has issued a restraining order against notorious
spammer Stanford Wallace, forcing him to disable spyware programs that
secretly track users' actions and flood their computers with pop-up
ads. Wallace, who in the 1990s headed one of the most prolific spamming
companies, is the target of the first action taken by the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) against spyware purveyors. The FTC also alleges that
Wallace sold consumers bogus tools that supposedly detect and remove
spyware. Wallace's attorney said his client wants to use the Internet
in "lawful and proper ways" and "looks forward to an opportunity to
establish exactly what advertising practices are allowable." Laura
Sullivan, attorney for the FTC, described the judge's order as "relief
for consumers" while the case is being resolved. A hearing in the case
has been scheduled for November 9.
San Jose Mercury News, 25 October 2004
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10010269.htm
IBM TO ISSUE SECURITY ALERTS
IBM will begin releasing monthly security reports called the Global
Business Security Index to give corporate customers a snapshot of
current threats to computer networks. The reports will be based on data
collected from 2,700 IBM employees and about 500,000 sensors in 34
countries. The sensors are applications that monitor attacks and
attempted attacks against networks. The new reports will be part of
IBM's Security Threats and Attack Trends service, which is available
for about $10,000 a month and resembles the DeepSight Threat Management
System offered by Symantec. Analysts said such tools are valuable for
network administrators to anticipate threats and minimize the damage
they cause. Observers noted, however, that the computer security
industry is locked in a cycle of announcing vulnerabilities and then
working frantically to patch them before hackers exploit them.
New York Times, 25 October 2004 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/technology/25ibm.html
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
LISTSERV at LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
and in the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName
***
*Headline News Avoided By Most Of The Major U.S. Media
DISNEY AND VIACOM: HUGE FINES FOR TOO MUCH ADVERTIZING
Only the more independent media are reporting that Disney,
the world's second largest media company, has been fined a
whopping half million dollars for placing more advertizing
than is legal in their programming. In addition, Viacom--
the multimedia empire--has been fined a million dollars to
also penalize them for this illegal behavior.
Even in these days of rampant deregulation, there is still
a law against saturating programs with advertizing and the
"product placement" of advertizing items within programs--
and both Disney and Viacom were nabbed by the FCC--Federal
Communications Commission for these violations, but you do
not hear much about this on the major media who are in bed
with these two media giants through various deals. A news
report literally half way around the world reported this.
The laws prohibit advertizing in excess of 20% of showtime
[slightly different on weekdays than weekends], but it was
broken some 600 times last year in this case, and some 145
product placement violations were cited in this period, in
which products related to the programs were illegally sold
in the programs' advertizing slots.
The vast majority [85 million] of U.S. households received
these programs last year, in which various programs of ABC
and Disney were cited for these violations.
[Note, most or all of these laws are designed to protect a
viewer of age 12 or under from more than 20% saturation of
advertizing per hour of television. Apparently adults are
expected to fend for themselves, as they get saturated for
approximately 1/3 of each hour with advertizing. If there
is anything you can forward on this, please do.]
[In related stories from various stock exchanges, it would
appear Disney is not doing well, with European stock price
falling dramatically, and the selling off of the 333 store
Disney chain of retail outlets. Disney investors are also
suing Disney a couple million dollars for paying off their
former Disney President, Michael Ovitz, to the tune of $77
million dollars, apparently including such personages as a
former U.S. Senate member, and a famous Oscar winner, in a
legal process that could apparently be taught in textbooks
for the next few centuries. The details are still sketchy
but apparently there was a total of $140 million involved,
as severance pay for Mr. Ovitz, perhaps only half of which
is involved in this case. Ovitz barely lasted one year as
Disney President, and due to the manner in which he left a
severance package is being challenged as inappropriate. A
quick look indicates he was hired 9 years ago, so why have
the lawsuits only come up now? In another point, it would
appear that the Disney corporation would get to keep funds
and interest returned under this lawsuit, not investors.]
Law pundits predict that this case will drive up the price
of executive salaries paid up front, as this case seems to
have poked a serious hold in the Golden Parachute idea.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
THE HUMAN GENOME IS SHRINKING
Recent estimates over the years of how many genes it takes
to actually build a human being are shrinking. Remember a
while back when they talked about millions of genes. . . .
Now they think it really only takes just over 20,000. . .!
It turns out most of the human genome doesn't do very much.
INDEX FINGERS POINT THE WAY FOR MALE SCIENTISTS
from The Scotsman
Male scientists are good at research because they have higher-than-average
levels of the female hormone oestrogen which aids analytical skills, a
study on Bath University academics today revealed.
The survey found that male scientists tended to have longer index fingers
than other men, indicating high levels of oestrogen present in their
bodies.
Men studied had levels of oestrogen as high as their testosterone levels,
which caused the right side of their brains responsible for spatial and
analytical skills, to develop more strongly.
http://snipurl.com/9yf2
*STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
*PREDICTION OF THE WEEK
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
For more information about the Project Gutenberg's mailing lists,
including the Project Gutenberg Weekly and Monthly Newsletters:
and the other Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists:
The weekly is sent on Wednesdays, and the monthly is sent on the
first Wednesday of the month.
To subscribe to any (or to unsubscribe or adjust your subscription
preferences), visit the Project Gutenberg mailing list server:
http://lists.pglaf.org
If you are having trouble with your subscription, please
email the list's human administrators at: help at pglaf.org
***
More information about the gweekly
mailing list