[gweekly] PT1 Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Mar 30 09:15:53 PST 2005
GWeekly_March_30.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, March 30, 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
*
I'll be travelling to Alaska to give some presentations this summer,
so if any of you would like to schedule something along the way,
such as Seattle, Tacoma, Anchorage, etc., please let me know.
By the way, still looking for a gig in North Dakota, the only
state left on my list. A friend pooped out when we were only
an hour from Fargo. . .hee hee! mh
*
The Sony PSP sold all million units shipped to the US in one day,
and eBooks are already available on it in several formats.
*
Hot New Titles
The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1-4
eBooks 15474-15477 [Translator: Kisari Mohan Ganguli]
[The 18 original volumes are presented as 4 volumes here]
HOT REQUESTS
Darwin!!!
Would anyone like to work on reproofing our Darwin collection
and creating a compilation file as requested by our readers.
*
Project Gutenberg of Canada needs your help!
Please email:
pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
To subscribe to the pgcanada list, please visit:
http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/pgcanada
*
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Don't worry, many of the numbers listed are out of date,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
1 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
64 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from Edupage
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones
15,887 eBooks As Of Today!!!
12,760 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
We Have Produced 931 eBooks in 2005
We Are ~59% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000
We are ~18% of the Way from 15,000 to 20,000
4,113 to go to 20,000!!!
We have now averaged ~469 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971
We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Are Averaging About 315 books Per Month This Year
We Are Averaging About 78 eBooks Per Week This Year
65 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 02.80 months of this year, we produced 931 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to May 1997 to produce our first 931 eBooks!
That's 12 WEEKS as Compared to ~25 Years!
65 New eBooks This Week
55 New eBooks Last Week
357 New eBooks This Month [Mar]
333 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
931 New eBooks in 2005
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
12825 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 50.80 Months!
About 250 books per month
15,887 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
12,145 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
3,742 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
426 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
*
PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:
Since its inception in 2000 and the first eBook in March 2001, the Distributed
Proofreaders team has now contributed 6,543 eBooks to Project Gutenberg.
For more complete DP statistics, visit:
http://www.pgdp.net/c/stats/stats_central.php
*
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
***
Please also note that over 22,500 eBooks are listed via
The Online Book Pages, of which over 8,000 are from PG.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar
listing which is now in limbo. If anyone knows what is
happening with the IPL, please let us know. Inquiries,
made months ago, and again recently, have not turned up
any current information.
***
Today Is Day #84 of 2005
This Completes Week #12 and Month #02.80 [364 days this year]
280 Days/40 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
4,113 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
78 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 12 weeks of this year, we have produced 931 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 07/97 to produce our FIRST 931 eBooks!!!
That's 12 WEEKS as Compared to ~26 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #931
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
Jul 1997 Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens[Dickens #32][chuzzxxx.xxx] 968
Jul 1997 Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens[Dickens #31][ncklbxxx.xxx] 967
Jul 1997 Maid Marian, by Thomas Love Peacock [maidmxxx.xxx] 966
Jul 1997 The Black Tulip, by Alexandre Dumas[Pere][Dumas#1][tbtlpxxx.xxx] 965
Jul 1997 The Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle[HP#1][2rbnhxxx.xxx] 964
Jul 1997 Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens [Dickens #30] [ldortxxx.xxx] 963
Jul 1997 The Poems of Henry Kendall, by Henry Kendall [phkndxxx.xxx] 962
Jul 1997 Glinda of Oz, by L. Frank Baum [LFB#17][Oz#14][14wozxxx.xxx] 961
Jun 1997 The Tin Woodman of Oz, by Baum [LFB#16][Oz#12][12wozxxx.xxx] 960
Jun 1997 The Lost Princess of Oz, by Baum [LFB#15][Oz#11][11wozxxx.xxx] 959
Jun 1997 Rinkitink In Oz, by L. Frank Baum [LFB#14][Oz#10][10wozxxx.xxx] 958
Jun 1997 The Scarecrow of Oz, by L. Frank Baum[FB#13][Oz#9][09wozxxx.xxx] 957
Jun 1997 Tik-Tok of Oz, by L. Frank Baum [Baum #12][Oz #8][08wozxxx.xxx] 956
Jun 1997 The Patchwork Girl of Oz, by L. Frank Baum[Baum12][07wozxxx.xxx] 955
Jun 1997 Tom Swift & his War Tank, by Victor Appleton [21tomxxx.xxx] 954
Jun 1997 Tom Swift & his Big Tunnel, by Victor Appleton [19tomxxx.xxx] 953
Jun 1997 Tom Swift & his Air Glider, by Victor Appleton [12tomxxx.xxx] 952
Jun 1997 Tom Swift & his Sky Racer, by Victor Appleton [09tomxxx.xxx] 951
Jun 1997 Tom Swift & his Electric Runabout, by V. Appleton [05tomxxx.xxx] 950
Jun 1997 Tom Swift & his Submarine Boat, by Victor Appleton[04tomxxx.xxx] 949
Jun 1997 Ethics, by Benedict de Spinoza/Elwes Part 3 [#3] [3spnexxx.xxx] 948
[Translator: R. H. M. Elwes]
Jun 1997 The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson, by Robert Southey[hnlsnxxx.xxx] 947
Jun 1997 Lady Susan, by Jane Austen [Jane Austen #6] [lsusnxxx.xxx] 946
Jun 1997 Dust, by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius [dsthjxxx.xxx] 945
Jun 1997 The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin [#1] [vbglexxx.xxx] 944
Jun 1997 Misalliance, by George Bernard Shaw [Shaw #1] [msalixxx.xxx] 943
Jun 1997 Green Mansions, by W. H. Hudson [W. H. Hudson #1] [gmansxxx.xxx] 942
Jun 1997 Just Folks, by Edgar A. Guest [Edgar A. Guest #2] [jfolkxxx.xxx] 941
Jun 1997 Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper #1 [mohicxxx.xxx] 940
Jun 1997 Life of Thomas Telford, by Samuel Smiles [SS #5] [tlfrdxxx.xxx] 939
Jun 1997 Good Indian, by B. M. Bower [B. M. Bower #2] [gndinxxx.xxx] 938
Jun 1997 Poems: Patriotic, Religious, etc, by Father Ryan [fryanxxx.xxx] 937
Jun 1997 The Village Watch-Tower, by Kate Douglas Wiggin #3[vilwtxxx.xxx] 936
Jun 1997 Self Help; Conduct & Perseverance by Samuel Smiles[selfhxxx.xxx] 935
Jun 1997 Songs of a Savoyard by W. S. Gilbert [Gilbert #5] [svyrdxxx.xxx] 934
Jun 1997 More Bab Ballads, by W. S. Gilbert [Gilbert #4] [3babbxxx.xxx] 933
Jun 1997 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe [#1][usherxxx.xxx] 932
Jun 1997 The Bab Ballads, by W. S. Gilbert [Gilbert #3] [2babbxxx.xxx] 931
Jun 1997 The Cook's Decameron, by Mrs. W. G. Water [ckdecxxx.xxx] 930
Jun 1997 The Cyberpunk Fakebook, by St. Jude & R.U. Sirius [fakebxxx.xxx] 929C
*
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
With 15,887 eBooks online as of March 30, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.98 from each book.
1% of the world population is 64,275,850 x 15,887 x $.98 = $1+ trillion
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
With 15,887 eBooks online as of March 30, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.63 from each book,
This "cost" is down from about $.82 when we had 12,145 eBooks a year ago.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
At 15,887 eBooks in 33 Years and 08.80 Months We Averaged
~480 Per Year
40.0 Per Month
1.32 Per Day
At 931 eBooks Done In The 84 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
11.08 Per Day
78 Per Week
333 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 Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
FCC ALLOWS BELLS TO BUNDLE DSL
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled that local phone
companies cannot be compelled to offer stand-alone DSL service to
customers who purchase phone service from other providers. Florida,
Georgia, Louisiana, and Kentucky had sought to force BellSouth to
unbundle its DSL service from its phone service and sell the high-speed
data service to individuals who bought phone service from other local
providers or from cell-phone companies. BellSouth filed a petition with
the FCC, which narrowly granted the petition on a vote of 3-2. Michael
Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, the two Democrats on the FCC, filed a
dissenting statement expressing their concern that the ruling would
limit consumer choice. "If it is permissible to deny consumers DSL if
they do not also order analog voice service," they wrote, "what stops a
carrier from denying broadband service to an end-user who has cut the
cord and uses only a wireless phone?"
Wall Street Journal, 28 March 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111196508520290459,00.html
FEDS ORDER BANKS TO DISCLOSE BREACHES
Four federal agencies have released regulations requiring banks and
other financial institutions to notify customers when a security breach
presents a risk that their personal information may be misused. The
Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Office of Thrift
Supervision deliberated for 18 months on how federal legislation,
including the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act, should
be interpreted. The resulting "guidance" stipulates that when personal
information is accessed without authorization and misuse of that
information has occurred or is reasonably possible, institutions must
notify affected customers "as soon as possible." In all cases, even
those that do not meet the standard set for notifying customers,
institutions must notify their primary federal regulators of the
breach. Delays in notifying customers are permissible if such
notification is determined to jeopardize an investigation into the breach.
[You can be sure the delays will be long and constant]
PCWorld, 24 March 2005
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120168,00.asp
ICANN APPROVES EU TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN
Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
approved use of .eu as a country-code top-level domain for use by European
Union countries. EURid officials, who will manage the registry for .eu,
expect the U.S. Department of Commerce to approve the decision shortly.
The introduction of .eu is not expected to affect use of already popular
country codes such as .de for Germany or .uk for the United Kingdom.
Internet News, 25 March 2005
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3492776
BLUE GENE/L SPEED RECORD BROKEN, BY BLUE GENE/L
The still-unfinished Blue Gene/L supercomputer, being built by IBM at
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has reached a processing
speed of 135.3 trillion floating point operations per second
(teraflops), smashing the record it set last year of 70.72 teraflops.
When complete, the Blue Gene/L supercomputer will have a theoretical
processing capacity of 360 teraflops. Developers of the machine doubled
the number of racks in the system--to 32--to achieve the new record.
Each rack holds 1,024 processors; Blue Gene will eventually include 64
racks. Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, which is part of the
U.S. Department of Energy, will use Blue Gene to study the nation's
stockpile of nuclear weapons, without the need to perform dangerous
underground testing.
BBC, 25 March 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4379261.stm
CRITICISM MOUNTS FOR FEDERAL STUDENT DATABASE
The U.S. Department of Education has proposed creating a national
database of college students, but the idea has drawn heavy criticism
for its use of Social Security numbers to identify individuals. The
current system for reporting student progress, the Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System, reports aggregate data for
institutions and cannot accurately track students who start at one
college or university and transfer to another. The proposed database
would track individuals, offering more accurate data for graduation
rates and other statistics, but some argue that those gains would come
at the expense of student privacy. David Baime, vice president of
government relations for the American Association of Community
Colleges, said that despite the benefits to community colleges in
particular from such a system, his organization opposes the plan
"primarily due to privacy concerns, expressed to us by our members."
David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent
Colleges and Universities, said, "The proposal takes us down the
slippery slope toward Big Brother oversight of college students, and of
those same citizens beyond their college years."
Inside Higher Ed, 23 March 2005
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/23/unit
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
WHEN/HOW DID *YOU* HEAR ABOUT THE TEXAS CITY EXPLOSION?
[More "Packaged News" Reporting, Even In Scandal Midst?]
TexasCity has been the location of several of the largest
industrial explosions in all history, and a week ago from
the time you are likely reading this another happened, at
1:28PM, local time [CST].
However, four hours later, when the evening new was on at
CBS, NBC, and ABC, there was no mention of this explosion
in the headlines.
Interestingly enough, the BBC had already reported on the
story earlier and had even had time to relay through PBS,
to millions of non-commercial network news watchers. The
first ten minutes of those BBC news broadcasts were given
to the Texas City explosion story.
Details: This refinery is the third largest in the U.S.
15 dead and over 100 injured.
Oil prices were reported as being lower in spite of this.
Yet, gasoline prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange
hit $1.6080 per gallon record highs.
This news lets us calculate exactly how much profits are
made by those who buy gas at $1.61 per gallon and sell a
gallon at the then current average price of $2.06.
$.45 profit on an investment of $1.61 equals 28%.
Of course you have to add in the expense of pumping that
gasoline into your own tank trucks and delivering it for
retail sale to the local gas stations.
[Sources: Reuters and CNN]
*STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Robert Rodriquez, famed movie director of El Mariachi,
Desperado, Spy Kids, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, and a
new movie, Sin City, coming out Friday, said late last
night on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson that a
delegation from the Directors' Guild was on it way for
the purposes of shutting down the filming of Sin City,
when he resigned his membership in the their Directors
Guild so he could share directing credits with Quentin
Tarantino and Frank Miller on the new Sin City movie.
Apparently the Directors' Guild would not allow shared
credits for directing, even in famous cases in which a
director is fired and replaced, then replaced again.
[Not the case with Sin City.]
The film was totally created outside Hollywood studios
and their system of dictating motion picture practices
in great detail. This puts yet another hole in studio
system history in Hollywood, as Rodriguez and more are
making films on their own and thumbing their noses for
good at Hollywood and its antiquated political powers.
Sin City was made entirely in Austin, Texas.
DOUBLESPEAK OF THE DAY
Doublespeak to avoid the term "invasion" with reference to Panama:
"Operation Just Cause"; "directed our armed forces to protect the
lives of American citizens in Panama"; "deployed forces" to Panama;
conducted "efforts to support the democratic processes in Panama";
assured "the integrity of the Panama Canal", etc.
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
No mention will be made of the news embargo about Texas City.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
BOOK PRICES SKYROCKET!
Yet book prices never make the news.
The overall inflation rate over the past 50 years has prices today
at about 6 times what they were in 1955.
Gasoline at $2 a gallons is 8 time higher than $.25 in 1955.
The minimum wage is $5.15 as compared to $1 in 1955.
But the price of the average paperback book in 1995 was $.25,
about the same as a gallon of gas.
In 2005 the average price of a paperback is $7.50, or 30 times
as much as it was 50 years ago.
All this hype about gas prices, but never a mention of books.
Tuition is the only other item I could find that went up as much.
*
"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