[gweekly] PT1 Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Feb 23 10:00:39 PST 2005
GWeekly_February_23.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, February 23, 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
Darwin!!!
Would anyone like to work on reproofing our Darwin collection
and creating a compilation file as requested by our readers.
***
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Don't worry, many of the numbers listed are out of date,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
4 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
72 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones
15,530 eBooks As Of Today!!!
12,468 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
We Have Produced 574 eBooks in 2005
We Are ~55% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000
We are ~11% of the Way from 15,000 to 20,000
4,470 to go to 20,000!!!
We have now averaged ~462 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 82 eBooks Per Week This Year
76 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 ~1.25 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
***
***Continuing 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 01.75 months of this year, we produced 574 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to June 1996 to produce our first 574 eBooks!
That's 7 WEEKS as Compared to ~25 Years!
76 New eBooks This Week
88 New eBooks Last Week
282 New eBooks This Month [Feb]
328 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
574 New eBooks in 2005
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
12468 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 49.75 Months!
15,574 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
11,573 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
3,957 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
420 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 6,247 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 #49 of 2005
This Completes Week #7 and Month #01.75
315 Days/46 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
4,470 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
82 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 7 weeks of this year, we have produced 574 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 6/96 to produce our FIRST 574 eBooks!!!
That's 7 WEEKS as Compared to ~25 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #574
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
Jul 1996 Notes From The Underground/Fyodor Dostoyevsky[#1] [notunxxx.xxx] 600
Jul 1996 Vanity Fair, by William Thackeray [Thackeray #1] [vfairxxx.xxx] 599
Jul 1996 Heimskringla [Norwegian Kings], by Snorri Sturlson[hmskrxxx.xxx] 598
Njal's Saga, by Unknown Icelanders 597
Jul 1996 Rivers to the Sea, by Sara Teasdale [Teasdale #4] [rivsexxx.xxx] 596
Jul 1996 The Sisters' Tragedy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich[#1][sistrxxx.xxx] 595
Jul 1996 Twilight Stories, by Various Authors [twilsxxx.xxx] 594
Jul 1996 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant V. 1 [GEM1][swgemxxx.xxx] 593
Jul 1996 Chinese Nightingale, et al, by Vachel Lindsay [#4][ngalexxx.xxx] 592
Jul 1996 Flame and Shadow, by Sara Teasdale [Teasdale #3] [fshadxxx.xxx] 591
Jul 1996 Robert Louis Stevenson, A Memorial by A. H. Japp [rlsjpxxx.xxx] 590
Jul 1996 Catriona (Kidnapped2) by Robt L. Stevenson[RLS#25][ctrnaxxx.xxx] 589
Jul 1996 Master Humphrey's Clock, by Charles Dickens [CD#5][mhmphxxx.xxx] 588
Jul 1996 Danny's Own Story, by Don Marquis [Don Marquis #2][dsownxxx.xxx] 587
Jul 1996 Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, et al, Thomas Browne[rmedixxx.xxx] 586
Jul 1996 Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, the Crafts [runngxxx.xxx] 585
Jul 1996 Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson [ourngxxx.xxx] 584
Jul 1996 The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins [Collins #4] [wwhitxxx.xxx] 583
Jul 1996 A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories [BP#2] [bpstoxxx.xxx] 582
Jul 1996 Ginx's Baby, A Satire, by Edward Jenkins? [ginxbxxx.xxx] 581
Jul 1996 The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens [CD #3-4] [pwprsxxx.xxx] 580
Jul 1996 The Poems of Sidney Lanier [slanrxxx.xxx] 579
Jul 1996 Down With The Cities, by Tadashi NAKASHIMA [dwtctxxx.xxx] 578C
Jul 1996 The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 4 of 16 [sjv04xxx.xxx] 577
Jun 1996 The Project Gutenberg Web Pages [pgwebxxx.xxx] 576
Jun 1996 Essays of Francis Bacon [Francis Bacon #1] [ebacnxxx.xxx] 575
Jun 1996 Poems of William Blake, by William Blake [Blake#1][pblakxxx.xxx] 574
Jun 1996 Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb [tshakxxx.xxx] 573
Jun 1996 The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter [BP #1] [gbtbpxxx.xxx] 572
Jun 1996 The 1995 CIA World Factbook [CIA Factbook #5][world95x.xxx] 571
Jun 1996 The Moravians in Georgia, by Adelaide L. Fries [mrvgaxxx.xxx] 570
Jun 1996 Brann The Iconoclast, William Cowper Brann [vol12][bti12xxx.xxx] 569
Jun 1996 Brann The Iconoclast, William Cowper Brann [vol10][bti10xxx.xxx] 568
Jun 1996 Brann The Iconoclast, William Cowper Brann [vol 1][bti01xxx.xxx] 567
Jun 1996 The History of the Thirty Years' War, by Schiller [1jcfsxxx.xxx] 566
Jun 1996 Zincali, Gypsies of Spain by George Borrow [GB#4] [znclixxx.xxx] 565
*
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
With 15,530 eBooks online as of February 23, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$1.01 from each book.
1% of the world population is 64,112,028 x 15,530 x $1.01 = $1+ trillion
With 15,530 eBooks online as of February 23, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.64 from each book,
This "cost" is down from about $.87 when we had 11,573 eBooks a year ago.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
At 15,530 eBooks in 33 Years and 07.75 Months We Averaged
~462 Per Year
38.5 Per Month
1.26 Per Day
At 574 eBooks Done In The 49 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
11.7 Per Day
82 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]
PHONE COMPANY SUSPECTED OF BLOCKING VOIP CALLS
The FCC's investigating whether a rural phone company blocked access to
the Vonage Internet-phone service, which was competing for the phone
company's customers. The company has not been identified. The problem became
public several days ago when Larry Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law
School and an advocate of Internet freedom, mentioned Vonage's problem at an
industry conference in Boulder, Colorado. Shutting off a potential
competitor could violate antitrust laws barring companies that control
essential facilities from refusing to give competitors the access needed to
compete. (Wall Street Journal 17 Feb 2005) <http://www.wsj.com>
NO RFID TAGS FOR SCHOOL KIDS -- AT LEAST FOR NOW
[I remember the same fight 50 years about out registering dogs and bikes,
and everyone thought how silly it was, but now we have to register cats.]
The InCom company, which developed Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
tags to monitor the whereabouts of school children, has pulled out of a deal
with Brittain Elementary School in Sutter, California. School principal
Earnie Graham says, "I'm disappointed... I think I let my staff down. Nobody
on this campus knows every student." Dawn Cantrall, the parent who objected
to the system and brought the ACLU in to stop its implementation, remains
skeptical: "I'm not convinced it's over. I'm happy for now that kids are not
being tagged, but I'm still fighting to keep it out of our school system. It
has to stop here." The system was conceived as a way of simplifying
attendance-taking, reducing vandalism, and keeping students safe.
(San Francisco Chronicle 16 Feb 2005
sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/02/16/financial/f075453S34.DTL
'D' IS FOR 'DISMAL' U.S. GOV'T CYBERSECURITY
Despite widespread agreement that computer security should be a top
priority of U.S. government agencies, the latest cybersecurity progress
report from Congress rates overall government efforts a D-, with seven of
the 24 largest agencies earning a failing grade -- including the
departments of Energy and Homeland Security, which, ironically, houses the
National Cyber Security Division. "Several agencies continue to receive
failing grades, and that's unacceptable," says Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.),
chair of the House Government Reform Committee. But on the bright side,
says Davis, "We're also seeing some exceptional turnarounds." Those include
the departments of Transportation (up from a D+ to an A-), Justice (up from
an F to a B-) and the Interior (up from an F to a C+). Davis notes that
problem areas include lax security at federal contractor computers; a lack
of contingency planning for broad system failures; and scant training
opportunities for employees responsible for computer security.
(AP/Boston.com 16 Feb 2005)
<http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/02/16/agencies_earn
EDS SHIFTS CALL CENTER WORK TO INDIA
[Isn't this Ross Perot's company?]
EDS, a company that manages many corporate computer systems, plans to
close 21 call centers in the U.S. and Europe by the end of 2006 and shift
some of that work to India. EDS already operates three centers in India,
where salaries are much lower in the United States. EDS says that any U.S.
job losses would be by attrition and would be part of the 15,000 to 20,000
job eliminations that were revealed by the company last fall. Currently,
about 30,000 of the company's 120,000 employees work on software
applications, 27% of them in India and other "offshore" locations.
(San Jose Mercury News 23 Feb 2005)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10964039.htm>
[more on outsourcing]
LEGISLATION AGAINST BUSINESSES THAT OUTSOURCE
Colorado state senator Deanna Hanna has introduced legislation to
require that state to stop doing business with companies that outsource work
overseas instead of hiring U.S. workers. But critics of her bill say it
would actually cost the state millions of dollars, because so many companies
now rely on the practice of "offshoring." U.S. Bank economist Tucker Hart
Adams says Hanna's bill "will cost the state in terms of jobs, creating a
healthy economy, a good place to do business. Closed economies don't work."
(AP/USA Today 23 Feb 2005)
www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-02-23-colo-outsource-bill_x.htm
U.N. PANEL HOPES TO END WEB WAR
A U.N.-sponsored panel aims to settle a long-running tug of war for
control of the Internet at a Tunis meeting this November at the World Summit
on the Information Society, where global control of the World World Wide Web
may be decided. At present, the most recognizable Internet governance body
is the U.S.-based non-profit corporation called the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), but developing countries want an
international body such as the UN's International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) to have control over governance over Internet issues -- ranging from
distributing Web site domains to fighting spam. (The Australian 22 Feb 2005)
Rec'd from J Lamp, Deakin U.
australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,12334019%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
ATLANTA SUBWAYS TO FEATURE TV SCREENS
Atlanta's subway system, MARTA (the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit
Authority), will be the first in the country to offer TV on its trains, and
will begin showing closed-caption local news programming this spring. An
Atlanta company called the Rail Network, which is providing the technology,
will pay MARTA at least $20 million from revenues derived from commercials
shown on half-hour local newscasts provided by Atlanta TV station WSB. The
TV screens will be visible from every part of MARTA's rail cars, and audio
in English or Spanish will be available to passengers with headphones
attached to radio FM tuners or cellphones with adapters. (Atlanta Journal
Constitution 23 Feb 2005) <http://www.ajc.com>
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
[Nothing this week]
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
How one party managed to get a majority in Iraq elections
after all predictions were that they could not.
*STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Hunter S. Thompson
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
Publishers will continue spending millions on copy protection,
none of which will last even one year.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
A terabyte of hard drive how costs about the same as
the average computer.
*
"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