[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Aug 24 09:58:56 PDT 2005
Weekly_August_24.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, Auguest 24, 2005 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
*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
8 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
51 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
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*eBook Milestones*
17,020 eBooks As Of Today!!!
We Are 85% of the Way to 20,000!!!
13,978 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's 250+ eBooks per Month for ~56 Months
We Have Produced 2064 eBooks in 2005!!!
2,980 to go to 20,000!!!
We have now averaged ~498 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971
We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Are Averaging About 266 books Per Month This Year
We Are Averaging About 63 eBooks Per Week This Year
59 This Week
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~32 months, from 2002 to 2005 for our last 10,000 eBooks
It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100
It took ~1.75 years from Oct. 2003 to Aug. 2005 from 10,000 to 17,000
*
***Introduction
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This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
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***Continuing Requests New Sites and Announcements
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 07.75 months of this year, we produced 2064 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to Feb 2000 to produce our first 2064 eBooks!
That's 33 WEEKS as Compared to ~28 Years!!!
59 New eBooks This Week
34 New eBooks Last Week
178 New eBooks This Month [Aug]
~266 Average Per Month in 2005
336 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
2064 New eBooks in 2005
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
13978 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 55.75 Months!
Over 250 books per month!
17,020 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
13,611 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
3,409 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
476 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
[This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted
at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ]
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PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:
Since starting production in October 2000,
Distributed Proofreaders has contributed
7,361 eBooks to Project Gutenberg.
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
Please note the addition of the Internet Archive
marked with <<< below.
PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings
of 18 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
Himalayan Academy, 3,400 HTML eBook Files
Internet Archive ~30,000 eBook Files [In Progress] <<<
Literal Systems Collection, 68 MP3 eBook Files
Logos Group Collection, ~34,000 TXT eBook Files
Poet's Corner Poetry Collection, 6,700 Poetry Files
Project Gutenberg Collection, 15,035 eBook Files
PGCC Chinese eBook Collection ~300 eBook files <<< Note Name Change
Renaisscance Editions Collection, 561 HTML eBook Files
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=========~137,142 Total Files=====
Average Size of the Collections 8,067.18 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
~45,714 Unique eBooks
If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
~34,286 Unique eBooks
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Please also note that over 23,000 eBooks are listed via
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In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar
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made months ago, and again recently, have not turned up
any current information.
You can try a new IPL service at:
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It would appear that The Internet Public Library ended
its first incarnation with about 22,284 entries, which
has now been surpassed by the Online Books Page.
Still looking for more Internet Public Library info.
***
Today Is Day #231 of 2005
This Completes Week #33 and Month #07.75 [364 days this year]
133 Days/22 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
2,980 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
63 Weekly Average in 2005
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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***
Statistical Review
In the 33 weeks of this year, we have produced 2064 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 02/00 to produce our FIRST 2064 eBooks!!!
That's 33 WEEKS as Compared to ~29 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #2064
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
[Note: books without month and year entries have been reposted]
Feb 2000 To The Last Man, by Zane Grey [Zane Grey #12][lstmnxxx.xxx] 2070
Feb 2000 The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Pinches [?rbaaxxx.xxx] 2069
Feb 2000 Keziah Coffin, by Joseph C. Lincoln [kziacxxx.xxx] 2068
Feb 2000 Beasts, Men and Gods, by F. Ossendowski [bmgdsxxx.xxx] 2067
Feb 2000 Wildfire, by Zane Grey [Zane Grey #11][wldfrxxx.xxx] 2066
Feb 2000 Dick Hamiliton's Airship, by Howard R. Garis [arshpxxx.xxx] 2065
A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, by Samuel Johnson 2064
[Title: A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland]
Feb 2000 The Trail of the White Mule, by B.M. Bower[BMB#11][tttwmxxx.xxx] 2063
Feb 2000 All For Love, by John Dryden [John Dryden #1][al4lvxxx.xxx] 2062
Feb 2000 Shorter Prose Pieces by Oscar Wilde[Oscar Wilde22][wldspxxx.xxx] 2061
The History of the Caliph Vathek, by William Beckford 2060
Feb 2000 The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come by John Fox Jr[lsokcxxx.xxx] 2059
Feb 2000 Messer Marco Polo, by Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne [mpoloxxx.xxx] 2058
Feb 2000 The Last of the Plainsmen, by Zane Grey [Grey #10][plnsmxxx.xxx] 2057
Feb 2000 Life of William Carey, by George Smith [wmcryxxx.xxx] 2056
Feb 2000 Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana [2yb4mxxx.xxx] 2055
Jan 2000 Iphigenie auf Tauris, Johann von Goethe[#4] German[iphgnxxx.xxx] 2054
Jan 2000 The American Republic, by O. A. Brownson [amrepxxx.xxx] 2053
Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business, by Daniel Defoe 2052
Dickory Cronke, by Daniel Defoe 2051
[Subtitle: The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder]
Jan 2000 Old John Brown, by Walter Hawkins [ojbrnxxx.xxx] 2050
Jan 2000 Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion, by Wm Hazlitt[nwpygxxx.xxx] 2049
Jan 2000 The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by W. Irving #5[sbogcxxx.xxx] 2048
Jan 2000 Stories of Modern French Novels: Scribners Ed. [sbmfaxxx.xxx] 2047
(This is part of Julian Hawthorne's Lock and Key Library)
Contains:
Victor Cherbuliez: Count Kostia
Paul Bourget: Andre Cornelis
Anonymous: The Last of the Costellos; Lady Betty's Indiscretion
Jan 2000 Clotel; or, The President's Daughter, by Wm. Brown[clotlxxa.xxx] 2046
(See also #241)
*
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
1.1 Trillion eBooks Given Away
If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,462,207,246 that would be 17,020 x 64,622,072 = ~1.1 Trillion !!!
With 16,960 eBooks online as of August 24, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.91 from each book.
1% of the world population is 64,622,072 x 17,020 x $.91 = ~$1 Trillion]
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
With 17,020 eBooks online as of August 24, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.59 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.73 when we had 13,611 eBooks a year ago.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
At 17,020 eBooks in 34 Years and 01.75 Months We Averaged
~498 Per Year
41.5 Per Month
1.36 Per Day
At 2064 eBooks Done In The 231 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
8.9 Per Day
63 Per Week
266 Per Month
If you are interested in the population of the world or of the U.S.
you might want to know that these numbers, official as they appear,
are just just estimates, and perhaps not as accurate as we hope.
Recently the U.S. Congress, pertaining to district reapportionment,
who gets to vote for which Congresspeople, decided that many of the
districts were undercounted by 5%, perhaps then later deciding that
all districts had been undercounted by 5% [can't recall details].
However, I just this moment heard a news item that made me wonder a
bit more about the accuracy of the U.S. Census. A "Special Census"
is taking place in Normal, Illinois, that is expected to count more
people, by a factor of 3,000 or 3,400, depending on which source.
45,386 was the population as per the 2000 Census, so 3,000 added to
this would be an increase of 6.6%, and 3,400 would be 7.5%, above a
possibly automatic increase of 5% as per the same terms above but I
presume this is in addition to previous adjustments.
Of course, we should consider that we would have to double figures,
perhaps to 15% from those above, if are considering the normal time
between censuses of 10 years, these are for 5 years' growth.
In previous news I heard about the U.S. Census, no mention was made
about the annexation of various nearly locations as a cause of this
normally unexpected growth, but it is mentioned at the site I found
on the subject of the current Special Census.
If annexation is the primary cause of such increases, country wide,
then we should not be expecting a huge rise in the 2010 Census, but
rather should expect something more along the norm. However, if it
is not annexation, but more actual people on the average, then this
might be an indicator that the population of the U.S. may have seen
300 million go by some time ago.
For more details, see: www.normal.org/WhatsNew/Census.htm
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 5th was
the first Wednesday of 2005, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2004 and began the production year of 2005 at noon.
This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
***
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
ARIZONA HIGH SCHOOL DROPS TEXTBOOKS FOR IBOOKS
Trading printed textbooks for electronic texts, Empire High School in
Arizona issued iBook laptops to all of its 340 students when they
started the fall semester. Empire High is a new school, conceived as
one that does not use printed textbooks, though it does include a
library with printed books. According to Calvin Baker, the
superintendent of the Vail Unified School District, which includes
Empire, the idea was to move technology from being an add-on component
of education to a central role. In addition to having no printed
textbooks, the school incorporates technology deeply into the
curriculum and the design of the facility, which features a school-wide
wireless network. Balancing the risks introduced by such technology,
the school's network uses a central filter to control inappropriate
downloads or distracting applications such as chats and instant
messaging. Homework assignments submitted by computer are checked by
another application against published material and against other
students' work for plagiarism.
Wired News, 18 August 2005
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68578,00.html
WARNER MUSIC GROUP CREATES E-LABEL
Warner Music Group plans to launch an online business model called an
e-label that will use digital downloads rather than compact discs to
distribute music. Artists will release music in groups of three songs
every few months rather than a CD every few years. Artists who sign
with the e-label will also retain copyright and ownership of their
master recordings. According to the International Federation of the
Phonographic Industry, about 180 million songs were sold online in the
first half of 2005 compared to 57 million in the first half of 2004.
In addition, Apple Computer's iTunes service recently exceeded 500
million downloads.
ZDNet, 22 August 2005
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5841355.html
[Please note: this still requires the likely purchase of two songs
you don't want for every song you do want, and thus I predict will
not fly as well as the single song download model now in practice.
By the way, I think Warner and co. are well aware of this, and have
some hopes of actually getting away with it.]
[On a similar note, it would appear that SUN Microsystems is trying
their own co-optation route to change the Open Source Movement. . .]
SUN PUSHES OPEN SOURCE DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT
Sun Microsystems announced the Open Media Commons initiative in an
effort to rally support behind an open source standard for digital
rights management (DRM). The company is releasing code from the Project
DReaM (DRM/everywhere available) program under the open source
Community Development and Distribution License. The initiative involves
developing a device-independent DRM standard called DRM Opera and
user-based (versus device-based) licensing.
The Register, 22 August 2005
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/22/sun_open_source_drm/
VENDORS SUPPORT COMMUNITY WIRELESS PROJECTS
[In spite of the legal pressures companies who want commercial monopoly]
High-tech companies led by Intel joined in an international effort to
support wireless technology and applications for governments and
communities. The Digital Communities initiative supports 13 communities
that are desiging, developing, and deploying Wi-Fi, mesh, or other
wireless networks and applications. In the United States, Portland,
Oregon; Corpus Christi, Texas; Philadelphia, and Cleveland are
participants. Applications include support for municipal inspections
and repair, law enforcement, and emergency response. Taipei, Taiwan,
and Jerusalem, Israel, will also test Wi-Max.
Federal Computer Week, 22 August 2005
http://www.fcw.com/article90237-08-22-05-Web
[more]
WI-FI INITIATIVE SUPPORTS MUNICIPAL NETWORKS
A group of leading technology companies has started a program to offer
cities resources and discounts to encourage development of wireless
networks, both for city services and for residents. The "Digital
Communities" program is supported by Intel, Cisco, Dell, and IBM, among
others, and more than a dozen cities around the world are currently
participating. Organizers of the program believe that wireless
municipal networks have the potential to improve services and save
money in areas including emergency responders, such as firefighters and
police, and civil servants, such as meter readers and building
inspectors. Beyond city services, wireless networks allow cities to
provide Internet access to all of their citizens, including poor and
otherwise underserved communities, argue supporters. In addition to
saving money over other communication systems for city workers, the
networks can create revenue for cities that choose to charge for
Internet access. Taipei, Taiwan, one of the cities involved in the
program, is planning to use the network to create an online university
program for its 2.63 million residents.
CNET, 18 August 2005
NSF GRANT FUNDS STUDY OF ELECTRONIC VOTING
A team of researchers will use a five-year, $7.5 million grant from the
National Science Foundation (NSF) to study electronic voting. The grant
will support a research center called ACCURATE, A Center for Correct,
Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections. Based at Johns
Hopkins University, the center includes researchers from the University
of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; Rice University; the
University of Iowa; and California-based research firm SRI
International. According to Dan Wallach, associate professor of
computer science at Rice, "The basic question is, 'How can we employ
computer systems as trustworthy election systems when we know computers
are not totally reliable, totally secure, or bug-free?'" The ACCURATE
project is expected to produce technical standards for electronic
voting and to develop secure voting systems that are easy to use.
Washington Times, 17 August 2005
http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20050817-124413-4457r.htm
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***
More news from alternate sources:
BONES REVEAL FIRST SHOE-WEARERS
from BBC News Online
Sturdy shoes first came into widespread use between 40,000 and 26,000 years
ago, according to a US scientist.
Humans' small toes became weaker during this time,
says physical anthropologist Erik Trinkaus,
who has studied scores of early human foot bones.
He attributes this anatomical change to the invention of rugged shoes,
that reduced our need for strong, flexible toes to grip and balance.
http://tinyurl.com/bf835
*
*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
A new terabyte DVD recorder unit was announced today by
Japanese Hitachi, LTD for about $2,500 [230,000 yen].
Before you get TOO excited, it is really TWO recorders
in one box, but it can simultanously record two HDTV shows.
Another reason not to get too excited, unless you are in
Japan, is that they will be mostly available only there,
at least in the current marketing plan.
However, presuming that you will be able to get one,
you could then copy virtually every word in any of the
major libraries of the world on a handful of these DVDs.
*
More Global Warming
*STRANGE WORDS OF THE WEEK
The public domain is worthless, because anything over
45 years old is worthless, and copyright is 95 years.
DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
Iraq is not another Viet Nam.
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
China will continue bidding for, and buying, more and more
of the world's infrastructure, to the sad detriment of U.S.
Congress' inability to veto purchases in other countries.
[This has obviously been continuing this week, and likely
will become an ongoing event for the next decade or two:
the real question is will the media give the full story?]
*QUOTE OF THE WEEK
US spending on tutors rose to $4 billion is 2004 from $3.4 billion in 2003.
[This is enough for 4 million families each to spend $1,000 per year,
just on extra tutoring to augment our failing classroom instruction.]
Source: The New York Times via Edupage [paraphrased for stand alone grammar].
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/technology/22soft.html [sub. required]
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
In Rio de Janeiro over 1,000 people are killed each year by police.
[This reported in response to the reporting of the single person
killed by London police as a suspected terrorist bomber.]
Source: NPR, via WILL-AM, ~9:20AM today
In related news, the British Home Secretary announced the "grounds"
for deportation on the basis of unBritish behaviour, but experts on
the UK legal system say these "laws," not passed by Parliament will
never stand up in the courts [and thus are nothing more than "scare
tactics" aimed at fear mongering among the general population].
*
LaSalle county, Illinois, is reporting the driest summer since 1936,
of the infamous "Dust Bowl" era.
*
Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries.
"If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely
100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would look something like the following. There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer [I think this is now much greater]
1 would be 79 years old or more.
Of those born today, the life expectancy is only 63 years,
but no country any longer issues copyrights that are sure
to expire within that 63 year period.
I would like to bring some of these figures more up to date,
as obviously if only 1% of 6 billion people owned a computer
then there would be only 60 million people in the world who
owned a computer, yet we hear that 3/4 + of the United States
households have computers, out of over 100 million households.
Thus obviously that is over 1% of the world population, just in
the United States.
I just called our local reference librarian and got the number
of US households from the 2004-5 U.S. Statistical Abstract at:
111,278,000 as per data from 2003 U.S Census Bureau reports.
If we presume the saturation level of U.S. computer households
is now around 6/7, or 86%, that is a total of 95.4 million,
and that's counting just one computer per household, and not
counting households with more than one, schools, businesses, etc.
I also found some figures that might challenge the literacy rate
given above, and would like some help researching these and other
such figures, if anyone is interested.
BTW, while I was doing this research, I came across a statistic
that said only 10% of the world's population is 60+ years old.
This means that basically 90% of the world's population would
never benefit from Social Security, even if the wealthy nations
offered it to them free of charge. Then I realized that the US
population has the same kind of age disparity, in which the rich
live so much longer than the poor, the whites live so much longer
than the non-whites. Thus Social Security is paid by all, but is
distributed more to the upper class whites, not just because they
can receive more per year, but because they will live more years
to receive Social Security. The average poor non-white may never
receive a dime of Social Security, no matter how much they pay in.
*
POEM OF THE WEEK
This is number four of a series of five poems from a volume named:
"Thoughts of My Exiled Self."
The motto for this poetry volume is,
"Upon this Word I shall build my life."
On The Seventh Day
On the seventh day,
let your soul light up your eyes
like two candles in the Easter night,
like a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean
where feelings swim, and hope floats.
Copyright 2005 by Simona Sumanaru and Michael S. Hart
Please send comments to: simona_s75 AT yahoo.com & hart AT pobox.com
***
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