[gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Nov 9 09:53:34 PST 2005
pt1a1.n05
pt1b1.n05
Weekly_November_09.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, November 09, 2005 PT1*
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PT1A
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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*eBook Milestones
*Introduction
*Hot Requests, New Sites and Announcements
*Continuing Requests and Announcements
*Progress Report
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*Flashback
*Weekly eBook update:
This is now in PT2 of the Weekly Newsletter
Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter
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1 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
47 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
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*eBook Milestones*
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***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. Note bene
that PT1 is now being sent as PT1A and PT1B.
[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
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
MICROSOFT TO SCAN BOOKS FROM THE BRITISH LIBRARY
As part of its recently announced involvement with the Open Content
Alliance (OCA), Microsoft will scan 100,000 books from the British
Library, adding about 25 million pages of text to an online archive.
The OCA is a project led by Yahoo that takes an approach different from
Google's in digitizing books and making them available online. Whereas
books both with and without copyright protection are to be included in
Google's scanning, officials with the OCA have said they will only
scan books that are in the public domain or for which they have
obtained permission from copyright holders. Microsoft has an
established relationship with the British Library, providing tools and
resources as part of the National Digital Library plan. Lynne Brindley,
chief executive of the British Library, said Microsoft's latest
announcement is "great news for research and scholarship and will give
unparalleled access to our vast collections to people all over the world."
BBC, 4 November 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4402442.stm
GOOGLE DEBUTS BOOK SEARCHING
After nearly a year of scanning books from libraries partnered in the
Library Project, Google has added the first batch to its search
services. The goal of the project is to scan millions of books from
Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Michigan at
Ann Arbor, the University of Oxford, and the New York Public Library,
including books still under copyright. Although lawsuits challenging
Google's right to scan protected texts are pending, the company has
resumed scanning and has debuted the Google Print index. Google's Adam
M. Smith said that all of the books added to the index so far are in
the public domain. He said there are "thousands" of texts available, of
which users can read full texts, download pages, and copy and paste
sections of the books. A Google spokesperson said new texts would be
added as they are digitized and that some of those texts would be under
copyright. For copyrighted works, users will only be able to access
excerpts, but authors and publishers contend that even this practice
violates their rights.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 November 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/11/2005110301t.htm
[Reports from users indicate that downloading is still prevented
by various security measures. Any addition information welcome.]
AMAZON, RANDOM HOUSE JOIN THE ONLINE BOOK FRAY
Amazon.com will introduce two new services next year that allow
customers to access books online. The Amazon Pages program will sell
online access to books, by the page or by entire texts. With the Amazon
Upgrade program, customers who have bought the hard copy of a book will
be able to pay an additional fee and have online access to that text.
The only books that will be available in the new programs will be those
in the public domain or whose copyright holder has granted permission.
Decisions about whether users will be permitted to print pages from the
Web or cut and paste text, as well as pricing, will be made by
publishers and copyright holders, according to CEO Jeff Bezos. In a
separate announcement, Random House has said it will begin making
arrangements with online retailers and search engines to offer some of
its books in electronic format. Books that the publisher includes in
the program will be searchable, and users will be able to see up to 5
percent of the text for free. Beyond that point, users will pay per
page for further access.
CNET, 3 November 2005
http://news.com.com//2100-1025_3-5931569.html
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***
News from other sources:
Have you notice there aren't any ads for gasoline any more?
Is this some kind of refusal to enter into competition?
Exxon and Shell just pulled in record profits in the last 90 days,
even considering their billion dollar loss due to hurricane effects.
[When is the last time you saw an ad for gasoline? [Other than when
some brand buys another one and announces the change in the names.]
Search: Exxon shell profits
*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
Texas Plane Crash Caused By Order To Hurry Takeoff?
A small jet was told to hurry it's takeoff as a Southwest plane
was reporting distress and asking for permission to return.
Apparently this caused the smaller jed to crash on takeoff,
and the Southwest plane was rerouted.
[Not many details made available, even three days later.]
Source: Houston Chronicle
*STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"I am a fashion god."
Larger context:
"I got it all at Nordstrom's."
"Can I quit now?"
"Can I come home now?"
Larger context:
"I got it at Nordstroms.... Are you proud of me?"
"If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire,
you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."
Michael Brown, Former Head of FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency,
who was in charge of the botched hurrican Katrina effort.]
>From emails released by Congressman Charlie Melancon, CNN, etc.
Scotsman, United Kingdom - Nov 4, 2005
Free Market News Network, FL - Nov 4, 2005
and
"Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt...all shirts.
Even the President rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow.
In this crises and on TV you just need to look more hard-working...
ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!"
Michael Brown's secretary Sharon Worthy sent this message to him
as hurricane Katrina hit, Sept. 4, 2005.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
7/8 of American teens use the Internet.
[According to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.]
[These numbers are already a year old, and are likely up to 9/10 now]
*
The odds of moving from the lower economic classes to the upper
are twice as high in Europe than in the United States.
BBC, 11/07/05
*
Prescription drug prices are rising twice as fast as other costs.
[Perhaps related to the fact that now that TV advertizing is legal
for drugs, they are spending twice as much on ads as research.]
Source: The AARP Public Policy Institute
*
Annual Worst Jobs Report
Popular Science magazine listed the three worst jobs last month:
1. Human laboratory guinea pigs or "lab rats."
2. Manure inspector
3. Biology Teacher in Kansas.
*
Barbie and Ken's Big Night Out Includes Drinking and Smoking
A study released this week by the Dartmouth Medical School
shows that when kids went to the play store to by supplies
for Ken and Barbie's big evening out:
62% bought alcohol
28% bought tobacco
24% bought both
[Which means nearly all who bought tobacco bought alcohol.]
"Where's the beer, beer, beer?" asked one kid.
A 6 year old even requested his Mom's brand of cigarettes.
Another kid wanted to take beer to a movie, and a 5 year old
used wine, mimicing her mother's, "another half a glass."
[Source: CBS News, Dartmouth,
*
Recently released Star Wars Battlefront game took and the DVD
of Revenge of the Sith took in $210 million in a single week,
in record breaking sales.
The original theatrical movie release of Revenge of the Sith
only took in $380 million in its entire American release run,
totalling $468 million internationally, by comparison.
Sales of Battlefront II and Sith doubled expectations in areas
and sales continue to be high. Expectations are now that this
year will see a billion dollars spent on just these products.
Releases are still pending in other major markets.
In the toy market, Star Wars is raking in nearly 10% of sales,
outpacing its nearest, though still far behind, competitors in
sales by nearly 2 to 1.
Even Donald Trump will be airing a special Star Wars themed
edition of his hit show, The Apprentice, tomorrow, Nov. 10.
Star Wars was also the most popular Halloween costume just
10 days ago.
[Hollywood now makes twice as much from home video than
from theatrical releases. Remember when Jack Valenti,
head of the Motion Picture Association of America said:
"We are facing a very new and a very troubling assault ... and we
are facing it from a thing called the video cassette recorder and
its necessary companion called the blank tape.
We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this
Congress at least protects one industry ... whose total future
depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this
machine [the VCR]."
"[Some say] that the VCR is the greatest friend that the American
film producer ever had. I say to you that the VCR is to the
American film producer and the American public as the Boston
strangler is to the woman home alone."]
***
Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries.
"If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely
100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would look something like the following. There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South America
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer [I think this is now much greater]
1 would be 79 years old or more.
Of those born today, the life expectancy is only 63 years,
but no country any longer issues copyrights that are sure
to expire within that 63 year period.
I would like to bring some of these figures more up to date,
as obviously if only 1% of 6 billion people owned a computer
then there would be only 60 million people in the world who
owned a computer, yet we hear that 3/4 + of the United States
households have computers, out of over 100 million households.
Thus obviously that is over 1% of the world population, just in
the United States.
I just called our local reference librarian and got the number
of US households from the 2004-5 U.S. Statistical Abstract at:
111,278,000 as per data from 2003 U.S Census Bureau reports.
If we presume the saturation level of U.S. computer households
is now around 6/7, or 86%, that is a total of 95.4 million,
and that's counting just one computer per household, and not
counting households with more than one, schools, businesses, etc.
I also found some figures that might challenge the literacy rate
given above, and would like some help researching these and other
such figures, if anyone is interested.
BTW, while I was doing this research, I came across a statistic
that said only 10% of the world's population is 60+ years old.
This means that basically 90% of the world's population would
never benefit from Social Security, even if the wealthy nations
offered it to them free of charge. Then I realized that the US
population has the same kind of age disparity, in which the rich
live so much longer than the poor, the whites live so much longer
than the non-whites. Thus Social Security is paid by all, but is
distributed more to the upper class whites, not just because they
can receive more per year, but because they will live more years
to receive Social Security. The average poor non-white may never
receive a dime of Social Security, no matter how much they pay in.
*
POEM OF THE WEEK
Why do you look so lost, O Sailor?
Are the ways towards Light long forgotten?
Have the ways towards Darkness been concealed?
Many are the seas you learned by heart, starting
With the reddest. Will you end up with a century
Of passioned love and blood stained battles?
Winds ride aback your veils; you came to resemble a seagull
in freedom, But sirens sing to your angels in deception.
Why is your face so sad, young Sailor?
Is it harder to die, or more important to live?
A carousel of emotions spins its airy songs
At the destination. The sounds can be vivid,
But the sounds could also be long dead.
You, Sailor, go conquer the seas, and lead your ship
Further beneath the bridge of time over the endless waters
Until you reach the white peace of the water lily.
Grow old and never stop growing, Poet-Sailor.
You owe it to the winds, who tell your story.
Copyright 2005 by Simona Sumanaru and Michael S. Hart
Please send comments to: simona_s75 AT yahoo.com & hart AT pobox.com
***
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