[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Jan 5 10:09:36 PST 2005
GWeekly_January_05.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, January 05, 2005 PT1
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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*eBook Milestones
*Introduction
*Hot Requests New Sites and Announcements
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*Progress Report
*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
*Permanent Requests For Assistance:
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*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
7 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
84 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
[2 counted twice last week, we really did 2 more this week]
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
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*eBook Milestones
Project Gutenberg of Australian Reaches 400 eBooks!!!
14,956 eBooks As Of Today!!!
11,706 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
We Produced about 4,049 eBooks In 2004
We Are 99% of the Way from 14,000 to 15,000
51 to go to 15,000!!!
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HEADLINE NEWS
Jan 2005 Around the Boree Log and Other Verses, by O'Brien[050005xx.xxx]0400A
[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500051.txt or .000
[Author's full name: John O'brien, pseudonym for Patrick Joseph Hartigan]
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 11.80 months of this year, we produced 3960 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to December 2002 to produce our first 3,960 eBooks!
That's 51 WEEKS as Compared to ~31.5 Years!
91 New eBooks This Week [correcting for last report]
97 New eBooks Last Week [2 were counted twice, sorry]
385 New eBooks This Month [Dec]
338 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
11894 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 [48 Months]
10654 New eBooks Since Start of 2002 [36 Months]
8213 New eBooks Since Start of 2003 [24 Months]
14,956 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
10,821 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,055 New eBooks In Last 12 Months [Brett's Program]
4,135 [Combining the above from Brett's program]
[Perhaps a result of 53 Wednesdays last year]
400 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
We're still keeping up with Moore's Law!
Moore's Law 12 month percentage = 63%
Moore's Law 18 month percentage = 122%
[100% of Moore's Law = doubling every 18 months]
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*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
Since completing its first eBook (#3320) on Mar 13th, 2001, the
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Projects completed during the past year:
Jan 2004 - 267
Feb 2004 - 421
Mar 2004 - 365
Apr 2004 - 276
May 2004 - 235
Jun 2004 - 232
Jul 2004 - 231
Aug 2004 - 220
Sep 2004 - 182
Oct 2004 - 263
Nov 2004 - 280
Dec 2004 - 287
Total 2004 3,259
Average 271.58
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
[John just got married, and we're still giving him
one more week off. . . .]
However, there are ~300 Chinese eBooks from Prof. Mao in progress.
PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections holdings
of 15 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
Literal Systems Collection, 68 MP3 eBook Files
Logos Group Collection, 34,000 TXT eBook Files
Prof. Mao's Chinese eBooks ~ 300 eBook files
Poet's Corner Poetry Collection, 6,700 Poetry Files
Project Gutenberg Collection, 14,959 eBook Files
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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==========107,065 Total Files=====
Average Size Per Member Collection 6,691 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
35,689 Unique eBooks
If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
26,667 Unique eBooks
***
Today Is Day #365 of 2004
This Completes Week #52 and Month #12.00
00 Days/00 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
51 Books To Go To #15,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
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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Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
Statistical Review
In the 52 weeks of this year, we have produced 4,049 new eBooks.
It took us from 1971 to 2001 to produce our FIRST 4,049 eBooks!!!
That's 52 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 1/3 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #4049
May 2003 Mates at Billabong, by Mary Grant Bruce [mtsbbxxx.xxx] 4050
May 2003 Piccolissima, by Eliza Lee Follen [Follen #9][pcclsxxx.xxx] 4049
May 2003 The Talkative Wig, by Eliza Lee Follen [ELF#8][tktvwxxx.xxx] 4048
May 2003 The Leavenworth Case, by Anna Katharine Green [#6][lvnwrxxx.xxx] 4047
May 2003 The Garden of Survival, by Algernon Blackwood [grdnsxxx.xxx] 4046
May 2003 Omoo, by Herman Melville [Melville#5][omoosxxx.xxx] 4045
May 2003 What the Animals Do and Say, by E.L.Follen [ELF#7][wtnmlxxx.xxx] 4044
May 2003 The Dynasts, by Thomas Hardy [Hardy#24][dynstxxx.xxx] 4043
May 2003 Mozart:The Man and the Artist, by Kerst & Krehbiel[wammaxxx.xxx] 4042
May 2003 Conscience, by Eliza Lee Follen [Follen#6][cnscnxxx.xxx] 4041
May 2003 The Pedler of Dust Sticks, by Eliza Lee Follen[#5][pdlrdxxx.xxx] 4040
May 2003 Volpone; Or, The Fox, Ben Jonson [Jonson #5][vlpnrxxx.xxx] 4039
May 2003 Imaginary Portraits, Walter Horatio Pater [#6][?imagxxx.xxx] 4038
May 2003 Appreciations, With An Essay on Style, Pater [#5][?awaexxx.xxx] 4037
May 2003 Essays From The Guardian, Walter Horatio Pater[#4][?essgxxx.xxx] 4036
With 14,956 eBooks online as of January 05, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.67 from each book,
for Project Gutenberg to have currently given away $1,000,000,000,000
[One Trillion Dollars] in books.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
This "cost" is down from about $.92 when we had 10,821 eBooks a year ago.
Can you imagine ~14,956 books each costing ~$.25 less a year later???
Or. . .would this say it better?
Can you imagine ~14,956 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???
At 14,956 eBooks in 33 Years and 06.00 Months We Averaged
446 Per Year [We do about 3/4 that much per month these days!]
37.2 Per Month
1.22 Per Day
At 4049 eBooks Done In The 364 Days Of 2004 We Averaged
11 Per Day
78 Per Week
337 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]
[There haven't been many issues of Newsscan and Edupage
recently, due to the holidays, so very few articles here.]
THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING: THE WEB, OF COURSE
The distinguished computer scientist Ramesh Jain says in his blog
that his interview with John Gehl for Ubiquity received widespread
attention and demonstrated that the importance of paper publications is
becoming less significant compared to appearance of ideas or articles in
cyberspace: "None of my articles that appeared in well respected journals
got the attention of relevant people so rapidly... I am convinced that this
is clearly the direction for ideas propagation and distribution." And last
week's Ubiquity interview with technology visionary Michael Schrage also
received a tremendous response from readers. You'll find the two interviews
at: <http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v5i29_jain.html> and
<http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v5i39_schrage.html>
RADAR INFO 'MORE RELIABLE' THAN WHAT THE AIRLINES TELL YOU
[Tired of not being able to believe what the airlines tell you?]
The Yosemite International Airport in Fresno, California, has become the
first in the nation to use a Web-based wireless system that relies strictly
on radar (rather than on reports from the airline carriers themselves) to
obtain the flight information it displays on monitors and portable kiosks.
Ron Dunsky, of the company that developed the software, says: "It is a way
to inexpensively kick information up to a more accurate level."
(AP/Washington Post 4 Jan 2005)
<www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46599-2005Jan4.html?nav=headlines>
'ENHANCED INTENSIVE CARE': IF YOU NEED IT YOU'LL WANT IT
[Waiting for first story of a patient dying "live" on camera
while no one is paying attention to what the camera is showing]
New technology known as eICU ("Enhanced Intensive Care") lets
physicians miles away from their patents manage health care via cameras and
banks of computer screens. Developed by Baltimore-based VISICU Inc., the
technology is already in use at least 18 hospital systems nationwide.
Whereas traditional health care systems rely on nurses to notice a problem
with a patient and relay the information to a doctor, eICU informs the
doctor directly. The doctor can check the patient's ventilator, intravenous
medication and anything else in the patient's room, and one physician notes:
"The camera is such that I can count eyelashes."
(AP/Los Angeles Times 4 Jan 2004)
<http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology12jan04,1,3365615.story?
coll=sns-ap-toptechnology>
ANOTHER HIGH-TECH LEAP IN INDIA
[India and China will be moving up the technology ladder, just watch.]
The Indian state Andhra Pradesh is planning a new $90-million network
that will move data between Hyderabad, the state's capital, and 23 districts
at a speed more than 5,000 times the speed of the existing network.
Hyderabad is already a hub of knowledge-based industries, and it has
attracted Microsoft and numerous other world-class companies to establish
research centers there. Mohammed Ali Shabbir, the state's information
minister, predicts predicts the new system will revolutionize the entire
communication network. He explains: "Widespread availability of broadband
services at very low and affordable rates is expected to take government
services to the doorsteps of the citizens and also trigger significant
economic activity in every sector." (AP 3 Jan 2004)
<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050103/D87CLVL00.html>
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*
>From Edupage
[There haven't been many issues of Newsscan and Edupage
recently, due to the holidays, so very few articles here.]
COLLEGES EXPAND RECRUITING TECHNOLOGY
As the effectiveness of e-mail as an admissions tool declines, colleges
and universities are beginning to explore alternative recruitment
Internet strategies. At the top of the list for many institutions are
streaming videos of campus, either on the school's Web page or in the
form of video magazines, or Vmags. Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame
began testing a Vmag two years ago, sending it to students who had been
accepted but had not yet decided to enroll. Saint Mary's Vmag includes
four videos, each between one and two minutes, showing various
activities on campus. Users who have downloaded the Vmag are prompted
when new versions are available. Many believe video is able to persuade
in ways that fixed images are not. Westminster College in Salt Lake
City has added 136 video clips to its Web site in an effort to appeal
to prospective students. Joel Bauman, vice president for enrollment at
Westminster, said the videos are fairly inexpensive to produce. Karen
Giannino, senior associate dean of admission at Colgate University in
Hamilton, N.Y., said the videos added to her institution's Web site
help "tell our story in a compelling way" and "differentiate Colgate"
from similar schools.
New York Times, 30 December 2004 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/technology/circuits/30coll.html
EBAY TO DISCONTINUE PASSPORT
Online auction site eBay has announced it will discontinue support of
Microsoft's Passport service later this month. The service offers
registered users a single location to store personal information
including names, addresses, and credit card numbers. When shopping at
online vendors participating in the service, users can access their
profiles for transactions with just a single login. Since its debut in
1999, however, Passport has failed to live up to expectations, in part
due to competition as well as to security concerns among consumers. In
addition, retailers were slow to sign up for fear that Microsoft might
begin charging fees to retailers for the service. A spokesperson from
eBay said that the percentage of its customers who regularly signed in
using Passport was "very small." Despite losing one of the largest online
retailers in eBay, Microsoft said the Passport service will continue.
Reuters, 1 January 2005
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=7217100
COPYRIGHT LEVY ATTACHED TO GERMAN PC SALES
A German court has ordered one of the country's largest PC makers to
pay a levy for each new computer sold, to compensate copyright holders
for royalties lost to copying. Germany has long charged such levies on
devices used for copying content, including blank audio and video
cassettes. The VG Wort rights society, which represents copyright
holders in Germany, had asked the court to charge Fujitsu Siemens
Computers 30 euros (US$41) per computer; the court decided on a levy of
12 euros. VG Wort said it will work to make all PC vendors in Germany
subject to the same levy. Bernd Bischoff, CEO of Fujitsu Siemens, said
the levy is "a de facto tax on PCs," which will tend to decrease sales.
Officials from Fujitsu Siemens said they will consider appealing the
decision and have asked the German government to review the copyright
levies as they apply to digital technologies.
ITWorld, 24 December 2004
http://www.itworld.com/Man/2681/041224germanlevy/
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***
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
*Headline News Avoided By Most Of The Major U.S. Media
*STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
About last week's quote:
The actual quote by Jan Egeland, the United Nations' emergency
relief coordinator and former head of the Norwegian Red Cross:
"We were more generous when we were less rich, many of the rich countries.
And it is beyond me, why are we so stingy, really. Even Christmas time
should remind many Western countries at least how rich we have become."
George Stephanopolis questionned Secretary of State Colin Powell
about this, asking pretty much the same question I did: Why was
the original estimate barely into the millions of dollars, when
it was obvious from the start that it would/should/could approach
a billion dollars?
Not to mention why President Bush took four days before giving out
any statement whatsoever.
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
I'm sure you've all now heard this spin-doctored beyond belief,
so I'll let it be other than to add that when all is said and done,
perhaps over a year from now, the death toll might be 1/4 million,
possibly the second greatest natural disaster of all time.
[There was an earthquake in Japan in the 1500s that perhaps took
1/2 million lives, perhaps 3/4 million.]
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
More on TIMSS
I'm not at all sure why the 8th grade math scores got the
press releases a few weeks ago, my own comparisons with a
report from 1999 that I saved showed that the U.S. scores
in 8th grade science showed much more of a change:
1999
Rank Country Name Score
28 United States 500
2003
Rank Country Name Score
09 United States 527
This shows a 5% increase in absolute scoring, and drastic
improvement in international ranking.
[Perhaps it was a misprint, and the press releases should
have said Science, not Math]
At any rate, here are the top 15 in each category of 2003:
Math
Grade 8
Rank Country Name Score
1. Singapore 605
2. Korea [Rep./South] 589
3. Hong Kong, SAR 586
4. Chinese Taipei 585
5. Japan 570
6. Belgium [Flemish] 537
7. Netherlands 536
8. Estonia 531
9. Hungary 529
10. Malaysia 508
11. Latvia 508
12. Russian Federation 508
13. Slovak Republic 508
14. Australia 505
15. United States 504
Math
Grade 4 [Only about half as many countries measured]
Rank Country Name Score
1. Singapore 594
2. Hong Kong SAR 575
3. Japan 565
4. Chinese Taipei 564
5. Belgium [Flemish] 551
6. Netherlands 540
7. Latvia 536
8. Lithuania 534
9. Russian Federation 532
10. England 531
11. Hungary 529
12. United States 518
13. Cyprus 510
14. Moldova, Rep. of 504
15. Italy 503
[Please note approximately 100 point
level change between the 15 each grade]
Science
Grade 8
Rank Country Name Score
1. Singapore 578
2. Chinese Taipei 571
3. Korea, Rep./South 558
4. Hong Kong, SAR 556
5. Estonia 552
6. Japan 552
7. Hungary 543
8. Netherlands 536
9. United States 527
10. Australia 527
11. Sweden 524
12. Slovenia 520
13. New Zealand 520
14. Lithuania 519
15. Slovak Republic 520
[Note only 58 points from
#1 to #15 in this area]
Science
Grade 4
Rank Country Name Score
1. Singapore 565
2. Chinese Taipei 551
3. Japan 543
4. Hong Kong, SAR 542
5. England 540
6. United States 536
7. Latvia 532
8. Hungary 530
9. Russian Federation 526
10. Netherlands 525
11. Australia 521
12. New Zealand 520
13. Belgium [Flemish] 518
14. Italy 516
15. Lithuania 512
[Again note less difference
betwen #1 and #15]
TIMSS = Third International Mathematics and Science Study
Three weeks ago nearly every new service had positive comments
about the improved U.S. students' TIMSS test scores that come
out every four years. Only one source I heard had the nerve
to say that the scores didn't really show any improvement,
while the rest seemed to reek of jingoism.
However, in reviewing the scores, it seems obvious that the
U.S. test scores in question, the 8th grade math scores,
were basically unchanged, moving up less than 1% from the
1999 score of 500 to the 2003 score of 504, out of 800.
This represents a change of 1/5 of 1% per year, which I
seriously doubt is within the statistical parameters of
the TIMSS testing methodologies. [This is 1/8% if you
measure from the total of 800 points, or a 1/2% total
change over the four year period, an increment these
kinds of tests are not reported to target.]
Much more likely is the fact that the U.S. ranking has
been changed more by changes in the other countries,
both in terms of the changes the countries chosen for
the 2003 tests, and the performance changes of those
countries that stayed the same.
More details of score changes in the top 20 of 1999:
Rank Country 1999/2003 Change
1/1 Singapore 643/605 = 38
2/2 Korea 607/589 = 18
3/5 Japan 605/570 = 35
4/3 Hong Kong 588/586 = 3
6/6 Belgium (Fl) 565/537 = 28
7/13 Slovak Republic 547/508 = 39
9/7 Netherlands 541/536 = 5
9/21 Slovenia 541/493 = 48
[Netherlands and Slovenia tied in 1999]
11/25 Bulgaria 540/476 = 66
14/9 Hungary 537/529 = 7
16/14 Australia 530/505 = 25
Avg. of 11 listed here: 568/539 = 29
Change in U.S. Score: 500/504 = 4
Change in U.S. Rank 28/15 = 13
Obviously the other countries changed much more than the U.S.,
over 7 times as much change, not to mention that many of the
countries tested in 1999 were not tested in 2003, a factor of
change much greater than that of the U.S. performance change.
Thus we see that that most other countries changed
much more than did the U.S., which changed very little.
It would appear that the U.S. didn't really move on the
charts so much as other countries moved up and down past
the U.S.
In addition, it appears that the science scores were not
mentioned in these news reports, nor were the scores for
students in the lower grade classes. I will have to dig
them up to let you know more about them in later issues.
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