[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Sep 1 09:39:38 PDT 2004
GWeekly_September_1.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, September 1, 2004 PT1
******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Search for "*eBook" or "*Intro". . .to jump to that section, etc.]
*eBook Milestones
*Introduction
*THE INTERNET CELEBRATES 35TH BIRTHDAY
*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.]
65 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
We Are Over 90% of the Way to 15,000!!!
13,677 eBooks As Of Today!!!
1,323 to go to 15,000
We have now averaged about 413 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
***
THE INTERNET CELEBRATES 35TH BIRTHDAY
On September 2, 1969, the first "network connection" was created at
UCLA as test data flowed through a 15 foot cable between computers.
In January, 1970, the experiments had expanded to connect four of
these computer "nodes" as they were called back then, and in 1971
the first transcontinental hookup was established by adding 23 of
these nodes from coast to coast. Project Gutenberg began in that
same year, thus becoming the oldest of what we now call "sites."
See this URL for more details:
www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/08/29/internet.birthday.ap/index.html
***Introduction
[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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This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
Over Our 33 07/52 Year History, We Have Now Averaged About 412 eBooks/Yr
And This Year We Are Averaging Nearly That New eBook Level. . .PER MONTH!
We Are Averaging About 357 eBooks Per Month This Year
About 81 Per Week
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***Hot Requests New Sites and Announcements
AUSTRALIA PREPARES FOR 20 YEAR COPYRIGHT EXTENSION
In the wake of various announcements that are probably
precursors to the reversal of the Australian Parliament's
resolution of about three years ago to resist copyright
extensions
It would appear that nothing more is going to enter the
public domain in Australia for the next 20 years in
response to "Free Trade Agreement" pressures from the U.S.
[More possible Australian law changes below in Newsscan]
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That's 34 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 Years!
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355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
2770 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
10615 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 43.75 Months!
13,677 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
9,149 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
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373 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
We're still keeping up with Moore's Law!
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Today Is Day #230 of 2004
This Completes Week #32 and Month #7.50
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Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
Statistical Review
In the 34 weeks of this year, we have produced 2770 new eBooks.
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That's 34 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 YEARS!!!
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for Project Gutenberg to have currently given away $1,000,000,000,000
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This "cost" is down from about $1.09 when we had 9149 eBooks a year ago
Can you imagine ~13,677 books each costing ~$.36 less a year later???
Or. . .would this say it better?
Can you imagine ~13,677 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???
At 13,677 eBooks in 33 Years and 01.75 Months We Averaged
412.9 Per Year [We add nearly that much per month these days!]
34.4 Per Month
1.13 Per Day
At 2770 eBooks Done In The 244 Days Of 2004 We Averaged
11.4 Per Day
79.5 Per Week
355.5 Per Month
The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks'
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This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
*Flashback!!!
2770 New eBooks So Far in 2004
It took us ~30 years for the first 2770 !
That's the 7.75 months of 2004 as Compared to ~30 years!!!
Here Is A Sample Of What Books Were Being Done Around #2770
Aug 2001 Jewel, by Clara Louise Burnham [jewelxxx.xxx] 2778
Aug 2001 Cabbages and Kings, by O Henry [O Henry #10][ckngsxxx.xxx] 2777
Aug 2001 The Four Million, by O Henry [O Henry #9] [4millnxx.xxx] 2776
Aug 2001 The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford [gsldrxxx.xxx] 2775
Aug 2001 The Patrician, by John Galsworthy [JG #13][ptrcnxxx.xxx] 2774
Aug 2001 Fraternity, by John Galsworthy [JG #12][frtrnxxx.xxx] 2773
Aug 2001 The Country House, by John Galsworthy [JG #11][chousxxx.xxx] 2772
Aug 2001 The Island Pharisees, by John Galsworthy [JG #10][ipharxxx.xxx] 2771
Aug 2001 Five Little Peppers And How They Grew, Sidney [#1][5lpepxxx.xxx] 2770
[Author: Margaret Sidney]
Aug 2001 Cleopatra, by H. Rider Haggard [H. R. Haggard #22][clptrxxx.xxx] 2769
Aug 2001 The Paris Sketch Book, by W. M. Thackeray[WMT #21][?tpsbxxx.xxx] 2768
Aug 2001 The Devil's Paw, by E. Phillips Oppenheim[EPH #10][dspawxxx.xxx] 2767
Aug 2001 The Red Acorn, by John McElroy [rdcrnxxx.xxx] 2766
Aug 2001 The Lady From The Sea, by Henrik Ibsen [Ibsen #7] [ldysexxx.xxx] 2765
Aug 2001 The Mahatma and the Hare, by H. Rider Haggard[#21][tmathxxx.xxx] 2764
Aug 2001 The World's Desire, by Rider [#20], and Lang [#27][wldsrxxx.xxx] 2763
Aug 2001 The Brethren, by H. Rider Haggard [HR Haggard #19][brthnxxx.xxx] 2762
Aug 2001 Benita, by H. Rider Haggard [H. Rider Haggard #18][bnitaxxx.xxx] 2761
Aug 2001 Complete Celebrated Crimes, by A. Dumas, Pere #29[dcrimxxx.xxx] 2760
Aug 2001 The Man in the Iron Mask[The Novel]Dumas, Pere #28[ironmxxx.xxx] 2759
(See also: #2751, which is the essay; #2759 is the Novel)
(Note: [Please see the introduction which describes the various books
of this title, and how the various editions were published, and how they
have been named, and in what order to read them.)
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
>From NewsScan:
CUSTOM DESIGN ONLINE
eMachineShop.com is giving tinkerers a new tool for designing and
making their own creations -- its free design software not only tells
customers whether a design can be made, but also provides a cost estimate.
If the customer decides he or she wants to go ahead with the project, the
design goes to a real-world machine shop for manufacturing. eMachineShop is
the brainchild of Jim Lewis, a programmer and self-professed "tinkerer."
(One claim to fame -- "the world's hardest sliding block puzzle.")
Do-it-yourself types have used the eMachineShop process to manufacture more
than 1,000 orders for things like door signs, motorcycle seats, robot
frames, car engine covers, guitar plates and camera parts. "Being able to
sit at your home computer, draw up some parts, submit them and 30 days
later they are on your doorstep, all without human contact, is
mind-blowing," says hobbyist Dennis Vegh. Lewis's next project? An
application called Pad2Pad that focuses on electronics components. Lewis
plans to take the design process beyond machine parts to the custom
manufacture of printed circuit boards, including components like resistors,
capacitors and chips. "My dream is essentially to become the Amazon in the
manufacturing segment," says Lewis. (AP/CNN.com 26 Aug 2004)
www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/08/26/online.manufacturing.ap/index.html
MICROSOFT ORDERED TO YANK LINUX COMPARISON AD
Britain's Advertising Standards Authority has ordered Microsoft to
pull a print ad that includes a comparison of the total cost of Linux and
Windows. In the ad, Microsoft claims Linux is 10 times more expensive than
Windows Server 2003, but ASA has questioned Microsoft's math, noting that
the tests on which it was based involved running the two operating systems
on different hardware. While Microsoft ran Linux on an IBM z900 mainframe
(which is more expensive and underperforms the rest of its line), it ran
its own software on cheaper, faster 900MHz Xeon machines. The ASA concluded
that the ad was misleading because it implied that the comparison was
between the two operating systems only. (InternetNews.com 26 Aug 2004)
<http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3400131>
DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING TARGETS DRUG DESIGN
A global network of more than 150,000 home PCs called Folding at Home is
helping Stanford University professor Vijay Pande identify potential drug
compounds. The computers donate their spare computing power to run Pande's
algorithms, which are designed to accurately predict how well molecules
will bind to a given protein. "For almost 20 years, people have been
talking about doing drug design computationally, but the real challenge has
been getting sufficient accuracy. Our main goal was to come up with methods
to really push that accuracy to the point at which our methods are
pharmaceutically useful." Pande predicts his methodology may be used to
design new classes of antibiotics or speed up treatments for Alzheimer's
disease. "One way to think of Folding at Home is as a time machine where we
can do the sort of computational work now that would be very easy for any
researcher to do in perhaps 10 years. And we can develop these methods and
test them now," says Pande. (Science News Daily 26 Aug 2004)
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/08/040826090745.htm>
FIRM TARGETS TEEN PC MARKET
Digital Lifestyles Group is marketing a teen-friendly PC called the
hip-e aimed at cornering the infamously fickle teenage technology market.
The idea for hip-e grew out of Digital Lifestyle CEO Kent Savage's
conversations with his 16-year-old son and his friends. After a series of
informal focus groups, the boys were asked to draw up their designs for the
ideal PC. Digital Lifestyles came back with 20 product concepts, which
eventually were winnowed down to one. The hip-e is designed to serve as the
hub for all of a teenager's digital interactions, and comes with a
120-gigabyte hard drive, plus Wi-Fi accessibility, a TV tuner and
connections for videogame consoles. Speakers attached to the bottom of the
PC's stand are removable and can be turned into a portable "beatbox." For
$200 extra, the hip-e comes with an MP3 player/keychain data storage drive
and/or a cell phone that can be synched with data on the computer. The
interface is simplified -- users click on "paper" to launch Microsoft Word
and "burn CD" to open a CD-copying program -- and the 17-inch desktop
display features a "hangout tuner" that enables users to jump around
between applications categories, such as music, movies, games, photos,
communications, shopping, etc. Savage says teenagers generally don't like
performing separate searches for various programs, so "it made sense to
organize it for them and serve it up to them. I think what Apple did with
iTunes and the iPod is great. But that's just one application. We are doing
that -- on steroids. It's all of these applications, all on one platform."
(AP/CNN.com 24 Aug 2004)
<http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/08/24/business.of.life.ap/index.html>
U.S. LARGEST EXPORTER OF SPAM
The United States is the largest global source of spam, producing
more than two of every five messages, a report by security firm Sophos
shows. Sophos found about 43% of all spam originated in the United States.
The next largest source was South Korea, with 15%, and China and Hong Kong,
accounting for a combined 12% per cent. The report suggests that a U.S. law
known as CAN-SPAM that took effect in January has done little to curb the
flood on unwanted messages that some see as a threat to the Internet. Chris
Kraft, senior security analyst at Sophos, says the results indicate little
overall change from a similar survey in February for the United States.
(The Australian 25 Aug 2004) rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin U.
australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,10561978%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
XP SERVICE PACK: MIXED REACTION FROM TECH PROS
Fourteen percent of tech pros who installed Windows XP service pack 2
have had major problems thereafter, a poll at the SANS Institute website
says. Half of this number had no option but to reinstall the system in its
entirety. (The Age 20 Aug 2004) rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin U.
<http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/20/1092889334896.html>
IMAC REDUX
Apple has used the 2004 Expo in Paris to introduce its new iMac,
featuring the faster G5 processors currently used in Apple's top-end Power
Macs. The new iMac is packaged in an all-in-one unit that resembles a
flat-panel monitor but which has a processor and other components hidden
behind the screen. The side of the panel has slots for CDs or DVDs to be
loaded vertically. Apple executive Phil Schiller says, "A lot of people are
going to be asking where did the computer go? It's around here somewhere and
I just can't find it." The new iMac will be priced at $1,299 in the United
States. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 31 Aug 2004
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9544082.htm>
PRIVACY CONCERN OVER AUSTRALIAN E-MAIL LAW
Civil libertarians say that a proposed Australian law could allow
authorities easy access to private, stored e-mails without a warrant, giving
many new government bodies to access private e-mails, voicemail messages and
SMS messages. Under current laws, unopened e-mails can only be accessed if
they involve serious crime and only with a telecommunications intercept
warrant. If the bill is passed authorities would need only a search warrant,
or in some cases no warrant at all, according to online civil liberties
group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA). (The Australian 30 Aug 2004)
Rec'd from J. Lamp
australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,10613440%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
ACLU DENIES MISCHIEF IN POSTING OF DELEGATE DATA
The Secret Service is investigating the posting on a Web site operated
by an organization called the Independent Media Center of the personal
information of delegates to the Republication National Convention in New
York. The Center describes its activities as "passionate tellings of the
truth." The Secret Service, however, is concerned that posting of the
delegate data could subject the delegates to harassment, acts of violence or
identity theft. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing the
Independent Media Center, and the ACLU's Ann Beeson says: "This type of
investigation is really a form of intimidation and a message to activists
that they will pay a price for speaking out. The posting of publicly
available information about people who are in the news should not trigger an
investigation." (AP/USA Today 31 Aug 2004)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2004-08-31-indymedia-post
s-addys_x.htm>
LINUX MAKING MAJOR INROADS IN BUSINESS
A new Yankee Group survey shows that 36% of businesses plan to have
at least a few Linux PCs within the next two years and 5% expect to switch
over completely. Twenty-one percent propose adding Linux servers to their
predominantly Windows environment and 11% plan to move to a Linux-only
server setup. "All of the firms would like to reduce the amount of upfront
capital expenditure dollars they spend on expensive Windows and Unix
software licenses," according to the report. "However, they also recognize
that in certain instances, a wholesale or significant switch to Linux might
reduce upfront costs but result in higher overall costs." One potential
deterrent is the scarcity of Linux personnel, says the report: "The
establishments that have or are seriously considering Linux bemoaned the
present dearth and high cost of skilled Linux administrators, even as they
praised the open-source operating system's ease of use." (San Francisco
Chronicle 31 Aug 2004)
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/3
1/BUGL88H0161.DTL&type=tech>
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
BROWSING THE WEB AS A LIBRARY
Marti Hearst, a professor at the School of Information Management and
Systems at the University of California, Berkeley, has developed a
prototype search program designed to turn Web searches into something
that approximates browsing the stacks of a library. The Flamenco search
tool uses descriptions of archived items--in Hearst's tests, 35,000
images from an art collection--to display items grouped by criteria
such as artist, period, medium, and subject. Users searching for
representations of flowers in the 18th century, for example, could see
results grouped by decade or by variety of flower. Flamenco can show
groups of results that include paintings and sculptures of irises, or
paintings of irises and roses. Hearst said the tool allows users to
"compare and contrast, discovering new categories and relationships."
Bruce Horn of Ingenuity Software is working on a tool that would allow
a similar type of browsing on a computer, helping users find relevant
resources that might be distributed in many places around a hard drive.
New York Times, 19 August 2004 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/19/technology/circuits/19next.html
REALNETWORKS WAGES PRICE WAR, TARGETS APPLE
Making reference to the old joke about "losing money on each sale and
making it up on volume," RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser said his company
will offer songs from its RealPlayer Music Store for a limited time at
half price, including songs that play on Apple Computer's iPod
portable music player. The drop in price will reportedly widen the
company's loss for the current quarter. RealNetworks recently unveiled
a new version of its music software that allows users to play songs on
the iPod despite objections from Apple, which is considering legal
action against RealNetworks and said it will likely revise the iPod to
prevent playing songs from RealNetworks. Glaser has long argued against
"closed" formats for music and believes that, despite the short-term
cost to his company, the half-price promotion will ultimately benefit
the market for digital music.
New York Times, 17 August 2004 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/business/17real.html
UNIVERSITIES TO DEVELOP OPEN SOURCE FINANCIAL SOFTWARE
Indiana University (IU) and the University of Hawaii have begun work on
a project called Kuali to build open-source financial-system software
for colleges and universities. Organizers of the project said that
steep prices for commercial systems--as well as ongoing concern over
potential consolidation of the market, which could lead to even higher
prices for systems not specifically tailored for the higher education
market--are the major factors driving the project. Kuali will be an
expansion of a homegrown financial system developed by IU and currently
in use at its eight campuses. The National Association of College and
University Business Officers (NACUBO) will provide support and advice,
though no funding, for the project. In a NACUBO survey last fall,
nearly half of the respondents said open source was a viable option for
financial systems. Also partnering on the project will be a company
called RSmart Group. Although the software will be free to install, as
with any open-source project, RSmart hopes to sell support services to
colleges and universities that opt for Kuali.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 August 2004 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/free/2004/08/2004083002n.htm
DNA ANALYSIS USED TO FIGHT SPAM
Researchers at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center have modified an
algorithm--originally created to discern patterns in protein
sequencing--to serve as a spam filter. The algorithm, named Chung-Kwei
after a Feng Shui character, analyzes e-mail, looking for patterns of
letters that exist in spam but not in legitimate messages. Because of
the amount of spam in circulation today, the researchers have an
abundance of spam e-mail to feed to the algorithm to train it to
identify those strings of characters that indicate a message is spam.
Chung-Kwei is able to process 88,000 messages in about 15 minutes, said
the researchers, and will continue to "learn" as more e-mail arrives.
The tool is able, for example, to identify e-mails that have "S"
replaced with "$" as spam. Researchers said Chung-Kwei is able to
successfully detect nearly 97 percent of spam.
BBC, 25 August 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3584534.stm
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More Headline News Avoided By Most Of The Major U.S. Media
[Yet More oddness from the International Olympic Committee]
IOC NIXES BLOGGING BY ATHLETES
The International Olympic Committee has barred competitors, coaches,
and support personnel at the Olympic games from writing firsthand accounts
for news and other Web sites. Its position is that athletes and their
coaches should not serve as journalists and that the interests of accredited
media come first. The editor of Duke University's alumni publication says:
"This is unfathomable to me. I don't understand what the International
Olympic Committee might be concerned about. It's a way to engage a wide
audience with reporting from the field and therefore generate excitement and
interest in the games. This is a means to personalize the Olympics, to
excite a constituency with the thrill that comes with the knowledge that a
couple of their own are participants in the competition." The IOC isn't
buying it. (San Jose Mercury News 19 Aug 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9445119.htm>
A little about the medal count:
75 of the 202 competing nations won medals,
12 of them won a single medal, with Israel
winning its first and Iraq coming oh so close.
Total
Country Medals Gold
US 103 35
China 63 32
Russia 92 27
Prediction, next time China will do even better.
On a per captita basis, this would be the ranking:
1. Bahamas
2. Australia
3. New Zealand
4. Greece
...
35. US
***
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
US MEDIAN NATIONAL INCOME CONTINUES TO FALL THIRD STRAIGHT YEAR
The US Census Bureau announced this week the median household
income fell again between 2002 and 2003 as they continue to
digest more data coming in on this subject. More below.
POVERTY UP AND HEALTH CARE DOWN IN THE UNITED STATES
Poverty in the US increased last year to 36 million people,
providing about 7 people above the poverty line for each one
living in poverty, as the poverty rate reached 12.5% of the
households in the United States with incomes below $18,850,
which is less than half the median national income of $43,318
for households [2003].
Today's figure "represents a relatively large jump, for a number
that doesnt move that much" in most circumstances, according to
Heather Boushey, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
These household incomes are really less than than it appears,
as government assistance checks are usually counted as income.
12.9 million of those living in poverty in the US are children,
according to these reports.
THE RICH GET RICHER WHILE THE POOR GET POORER
The numbers also showed that that the opposite end of the spectrum
continued to see esclating earnings:
"We see that the top has been pulling away," Ms. Boushey added.
Women continued to make about 75% as much as men.
HEALTH CARE ALSO IN DECLINE
Meanwhile, the number of people without health care also
increased dramatically over the same period, to 45 million,
meaning that for every 5 US people with health care, there is
one person without. The is because the US health care industry
is the only such industry in the industrial world without a
universal health care program.
90 OF JOB SEARCHES FILLED WITH INSIDERS
90% of all job searches are filled with someone who already had
an inside track with the employers or interviewers before those
jobs are even announced to the public.
*ODD QUOTATION OF THE WEEK
"Just because someone is willing to pay you for something
does not automatically mean that something has real value."
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