[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Feb 16 10:06:03 PST 2005
GWeekly_February_16.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, February 16, 2005 PT1
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******
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
HOT REQUESTS
I was just wondering if you or might know someone from PG
who could help a Linux newbie like me. There are some programs
I want to install, but I need step-by-step guidance to ensure
the programs compile correctly and so forth.
Jared Buck <JBuck814366460 at aol.com>
*
HEADLINE NEWS
Project Gutenberg of Canada needs your help!
Please email:
pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
*
v0.2 version of PodReader is out, and it interfaces to PG. This allows
users to browse the catalog on their Desktop, pick a book, and have it
downloaded to their iPod in the correct format...this is a good plus for
PG users since it makes it a lot easier to get to PG documents.
http://homepage.mac.com/ptwobrussell/podreader.html
*
We have been invited to peruse the various eBook collections
of the Internet Archive for potential Project Gutenberg eBooks.
http://www.archive.org
Don't worry, many of the numbers listed are out of date,
but you should get all the files when you pass through
to the original sites.
Click on "texts" to get started, feel free to pick up any
of the eBooks you would like to work on.
Many Thanks To Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive!
*
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
3 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
85 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones
15,454 eBooks As Of Today!!!
12,392 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
We Have Produced 498 eBooks in 2005
We Produced About 4,164 eBooks In 2003
We Produced About 4,049 eBooks In 2004
We Are ~54.5% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000
We are ~9% of the Way from 15,000 to 20,000
4,546 to go to 20,000!!!
We have now averaged ~460 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971!!!
We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Are Averaging About 332 books Per Month This Year
We Are Averaging About 83 eBooks Per Week This Year
88 This Week
118 This Week [correction from 117]
[And it may actually be 119]
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~32 months, from 2001 to 2004 for our last 10,000 eBooks
It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100
It took ~1.25 years from Oct. 2003 to Jan. 2005 from 10,000 to 15,000
*
***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
***
***Hot Requests New Sites and Announcements
"[Beta-testing continues on bowerbird's viewer-app, "give,"
designed to turn plain-ASCII e-texts into full-on e-books.
Features include an automatic table-of-contents menu,
italics/bold, automatic hotlinks, big and bold headers,
illustrations!, and the usual ability to pick font/size/colors.
Please help shape the future of this viewer for your e-texts!
to participate, send e-mail to: zml_talk at yahoogroups.com ]"
*
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>
*
Please visit and test our newest site:
www.pgcc.net
[also available as www.gutenberg.us and www.gutenberg.cc]
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center [PGCC]
Please let us know of any eBook collections that
would be suitable for inclusion: public domain
or copyrighted, for which we must ask permission.
[or listed as copyrighted with permission]
You should see some significant changes this week.
*
There is a new experimental online reader available. Start from any
bibliographic record page, e.g.
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
***
Please checkout the various Project Gutenberg FAQs, etc. at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/about
*
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 15 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
*** PROJECT GUTENBERG IS SEEKING LEGAL BEAGLES
Project Gutenberg is seeking (volunteer) lawyers.
We have regular need 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 01.50 months of this year, we produced 498 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to July 1995 to produce our first 498 eBooks!
That's 6 WEEKS as Compared to ~26 Years!
88 New eBooks This Week
118 New eBooks Last Week
206 New eBooks This Month [Feb]
332 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
498 New eBooks in 2005
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
12392 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 49.50 Months!
15,454 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
11,435 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,019 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
416 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
*
Please note the new format for this week's report.
Including last weeks below for comparison's sake.
PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:
Since completing its first eBook in March 2001, the Distributed
Proofreaders team has now contributed 6,184 eBooks to Project Gutenberg.
For more complete DP statistics, visit:
http://www.pgdp.net/c/stats/stats_central.php
Previous reports looked like the one below,
please let us know your preferences.
*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
Since completing its first eBook (#3320) on Mar 13th, 2001,
the Distributed Proofreaders team has now produced its 6,390th
eBook (#14867). Of these are 5,992 unique, brand-new titles.
Projects completed during the past year:
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 - 287
Jan 2005 - 248
Feb 2005 - 11 (as of 2 Feb)
*
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
***
*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
***
Today Is Day #42 of 2005
This Completes Week #6 and Month #01.50
322 Days/46 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
4,546 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
83 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]
*** Permanent Requests For Assistance:
DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS NEEDS CONTENT, PROOFERS AND SCANNER TYPES
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.
Please contact us at:
dphelp at pgdp.net
if you would like to know more about the Distributed Proofreaders.
***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,
as well as 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.)
***
Statistical Review
In the 6 weeks of this year, we have produced 498 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 8/96 to produce our FIRST 498 eBooks!!!
That's 6 WEEKS as Compared to ~25 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #498
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
Apr 1996 From Twice Told Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne [#3][2talexxx.xxx] 508
Apr 1996 Adam Bede, by George Eliot [#2] [Mary Anne Evans] [adambxxx.xxx] 507
Apr 1996 The Shuttle, Frances Hodgson Burnett [Burnett #8] [tshtlxxx.xxx] 506
Apr 1996 Warfare of Science/Theology, Andrew Dickson White [hwswtxxx.xxx] 505
Apr 1996 The Fifth String, by John Philip Sousa [strngxxx.xxx] 504
Apr 1996 The Blue Fairy Book, A LARGE Collection [Fairy#1] [blfryxxx.xxx] 503
[Edited by Andrew Lang] (#1 in our series of large fairy tale books)
Apr 1996 Desert Gold, by Zane Grey [Zane Grey eBook #2] [dgoldxxx.xxx] 502
Apr 1996 The Story of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting [dolitxxx.xxx] 501
Apr 1996 Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi/Lorenzini[pnocoxxx.xxx] 500
Apr 1996 Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders, V. Appleton[#20][20tomxxx.xxx] 499
Apr 1996 Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm, by Kate Douglas Wiggin[snybkxxx.xxx] 498
Apr 1996 Tracks of a Rolling Stone by Henry J. Coke [trlstxxx.xxx] 497
Apr 1996 The Little Lame Prince, by Miss Mulock [lamepxxx.xxx] 496
Apr 1996 Amy Foster, by Joseph Conrad [Conrad Series #6] [afostxxx.xxx] 495
Apr 1996 To-morrow, by Joseph Conrad [Conrad Series #5] [2mrowxxx.xxx] 494
Apr 1996 Falk, by Joseph Conrad [#4 in our Conrad Series] [falkxxxx.xxx] 493
Apr 1996 The Art of Writing, Robert Louis Stevenson [RLS22][artowxxx.xxx] 492
*
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
With 15,454 eBooks online as of February 16, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$1.02 from each book.
1% of the world population is 64,112,028 x 15,454 x $1.02 = $1+ trillion
With 15,454 eBooks online as of February 16, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.65 from each book,
This "cost" is down from about $.87 when we had 11,435 eBooks a year ago.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
At 15,454 eBooks in 33 Years and 07.50 Months We Averaged
~460 Per Year
38.3 Per Month
1.26 Per Day
At 498 eBooks Done In The 42 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
11.9 Per Day
83 Per Week
332 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 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 NewsScan and Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
CHINA'S CRACKDOWN ON INTERNET CAFES
Chinese authorities shut down more than 12,575 Internet cafes in the
last three months of 2004 to create a "safer environment for young people in
China," according to the Xinhua News Agency. With 87 million people online,
China has the world's second-largest population of Internet users (after the
U.S.), and the government actively promotes Internet use for business and
education. However, communist authorities block access to Web sites they
deem pornographic or subversive and Internet cafes are banned from operating
near schools. (AP/Washington Times 14 Feb 2005)
<http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/C/CHINA_INTERNET_CRACKDOWN?SI
TE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME>
'THE NEW FORMAT IS NO FORMAT'
Music lovers may well be wondering why it is they're required to buy
the same song over and over again in different formats (think vinyl,
8-track, cassette, CD, etc.) and one music industry veteran predicts that
cycle is coming to an end. "The new format is no format. What the consumer
would buy is a data file, and you could create whatever you need. If you
want to make an MP3, you make an MP3. If you want a DVD-Audio surround
disc, you make that," says George Petersen, editorial director of Mix
magazine. The numbers seem to support Petersen's prediction: during the
second half of 2004 more than 91 million digital tracks were sold, compared
with 19.2 million in the same period in 2003 -- an increase of 376%. And
Apple, which reports total iPod sales between 10 and 11 million since its
launch in 2001, notes that 8.2 million of those sales took place last year.
Meanwhile, record labels who predicted digital music would be the death of
them are seeing CD sales up 2.3% last year, compared with 2003. Petersen
says music merchants need to capitalize on the digital trend and should
consider offering services for customers who might not have the latest
technology at home, such as burning CDs for them and offering
high-resolutions graphics for a jewel case. "Why aren't record stores using
the Internet? If you keep things old-school, you are going to die."
(Washington Post 13 Feb 2005)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19831-2005Feb12.html>
[Two stories: "Big Brother WILL Be Watching YOU."]
[Of course, the secret police won't be carrying these.
The reason they will give is that they are SECRET police.
You can't have pictures of them, their fingerprints are not
in the databases, voiceprints, DNA, etc., are all secret.]
'SMART' DRIVER'S LICENSES A TROJAN HORSE?
A move by Congress to endorse a Republican-backed measure that would
compel states to redesign their driver's licenses by 2008 to comply with
standards for making them electronically readable has critics questioning
government's motives, saying it gives the Department of Homeland Security
carte blanche to do nearly anything "to protect the national security
interests of the United States." Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) says, "Supporters
claim it is not a national ID because it is voluntary. However, any state
that opts out will automatically make nonpersons out of its citizens. They
will not be able to fly or to take a train." Proponents of the Real ID Act
say it reflects the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and will help in
the battle against terrorism and efforts to identify illegal immigrants.
But Paul says, "In reality, this bill is a Trojan horse. It pretends to
offer desperately needed border control in order to stampede Americans into
sacrificing what is uniquely American: our constitutionally protected
liberty." (CNet News.com 14 Feb 2005)
<http://news.com.com/From+high-tech+drivers+licenses+to+national+ID+cards/21
00-1028_3-5573414.html>
[and on a related issue]
CONTROVERSIAL USE OF RFID TECHNOLOGY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Brittan Elementary School in rural Sutter, California, is requiring students
to wear radio frequency identification (RFID) badges that can track their
movements in order to simplify attendance-taking, curtail vandalism,
and improve student safety. But civil libertarians are alarmed, and ACLU
representative Nicole Ozer warns, "If this school doesn't stand up, then
other schools might adopt it. You might be a small community, but you are
one of the first communities to use this technology." Angry parent Michael
Cantrall, who alerted the ACLU to the school9s decision to use RFID
technology, which is also used to track merchandise, says: "There is a way
to make kids safer without making them feel like a piece of inventory. Are
we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you
can't trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored, and someone is
always going to be watching you?" Each student is required to wear
identification cards around their necks with their picture, name and grade
and a wireless transmitter that beams their ID number to a teacher's
handheld computer when the child passes under an antenna posted above a
classroom door. But the IDs have been welcomed by some parents, such as one
who notes: "This is not Mayberry. This is Sutter, California. Bad things can
happen here." (AP 10 Feb 2005)
<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050210/D885RJD81.html>
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
SURVEY PREDICTS SLIDE IN HIGHER ED IT SPENDING
A recent Market Data Retrieval survey of IT officials at more than
1,400 two- and four-year colleges and universities suggests a decline
of 4 percent in IT spending this year compared to last year, itself a
decline over the previous year. Analysts at the research firm said the
decline is likely a result not only of tight budgets overall but also
of increased performance of hardware, allowing lower costs for some
investments. The overall drop of 4 percent is the net of a 13 percent
slide in investments at public institutions and a 28 percent increase
at private institutions. Private institutions continue to significantly
outpace their public counterparts on IT spending per student, spending
an average of $553 per student versus $203 at publics. The survey also
found slightly lower rates of distance education offerings, down from
67 percent to 64 percent, and an increase in wireless networks, rising
from 70 percent last year to 79 percent this year.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 February 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/02/2005020903n.htm
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
Last week's prediction read:
The results of the Iraqi elections will be held up for so long
that no one will care who was elected, or how many voted. . .
the fact that elections were held at all will called victory.
By now it must be obvious that there is a LOT going on "behind
the scenes" of the Iraqi elections, that took place January 30.
The media headlined a 57% turnout among eligible voters, but a
report on voter registration of Iraqis in the US was at 7% just
a day before extended registration periods finally closed. In
other countries around the world it was reported a bit higher,
but nothing on the order of even half the 57% headline numbers,
which would have been about 8 million voters.
Even the most literate, or numerate, reporters have now started
to question the reliability and validity of these reports, and
note that Iraqi election officials are becoming more and more
hesitant to answer questions as the vote count proceeds, rather
than having more to say as the count is more completed.
I know I often test the memories of our readers by asking them
to remember previous events of a similar nature, but it is now
obvious that the media should be comparing these new election
reports to previous elections in countries the United States
supposedly was saving from corrupt dictatorships and military
threats to world peace. The 1967 Viet Nam elections should be
coming to mind, as should the 1984 El Salvador elections, both
with similar initially high voter turnout headlines, which had
to be "adjusted" to lower and lower figures until it became all
too obvious that the initial figures were purely propaganda.
If the voter registration figures in Iraq at all resemble those
in all the other countries where Iraqis were registered to vote,
then it would be quite surprising if even 1/2 of the the 57% of
the initial voter turnout reports actually had registered, much
less successfully cast ballots.
The real question for us, locally, is why our media is not out
there asking questions about what is happening, but simply not
doing anything but reporting what they have been told to say?
Of course, if you really analyze just one week's worth of news,
you'll find just how much of the major media tells you is just
straight from the mouth of government officials, rather than a
"fair and unbiased" investigation into what really happens.
Initial reports of strong Sunni voter turnout have now proven
to have simply been pie in the sky to encourgage such turnout,
but it never caught on, even with the aid of such propaganda
relayed by many media sources who said those who reported more
truthful turnout figures were incorrect at best, and liars at
the worst.
Interesting when the liars call the truth tellers liars. . . .
When things go wrong, the current plan seems to be to muddy
the waters so badly that no one can tell what is happening,
and then reports are delayed so long that no one cares.
"That report is no longer operational," is what the Nixon
media people would say in such cases. I wonder how that
technique actually worked out in a historical perspective?
Worldwide press seems to be doing a little better, with at
least one of the major wire services quoting a high placed
Western diplomat as saying that voter turnout in the large
Anbar province was "quite low". . .but you probably never
heard that from the Western media.
Carlos Valenzuela, United Nations Chief Elections Expert
in Iraq said that predicted Sunni turnouts were so very
low that even if they proved to be too low that the real
turnout would still be low. But this hasn't been getting
much air time in the U.S.
The New York Times may have been one of the only sources
to actually report some hard figures, stating that their
sources reported "somewhat more than 50,000 of Mosul's
500,000 estimated eligible voters" had turned out in a
vote that had been 60% counted by February 3. Yet this
is not being used as a basis for other media stories.
There is a lot more to be said here, this merely touches
the tip of the iceberg. Some are questionning the actual
population figures for Iraq, other question those of real
voting age, etc., but there don't seem to be hard figures,
something the media has had a few years to come up with.
*STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"GI Joe was apparently captured and beheaded by terrorists
in Iraq, as the pictures previously released have now been
identified as the diminutive U.S. soldier of great fame."
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
A new DVD will become available that will be able to hold
nearly every word in every book in the Library of Congress.
[Details available on request]
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
Blogs are becoming the latest successor to the Gutenberg Press,
as they become the predominant fact releasing tool for the public.
[see Charlie Rose, 2/15/05]
*
"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 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.
***
*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