[gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Sep 28 04:13:43 PDT 2005
Weekly_September_28.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, September 28, 2005 PT1
******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971********
[Please note that today's Newsletters are being sent out a few hours early,
as my local mainframe will be down during business hours for maintenance.]
PT1A
Editor's comments appear in [brackets].
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
We have changed our format this month to provide shorter Newsletter files.
You should receive TWO versions of PT1 today: PT1A, and PT1B.
*
HOT REQUESTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
STATISTICAL CHANGES
Due to various changes in our statistical reporting and coverage,
the accuracy of the weekly count of the number of eBooks will not
be as redundantly checked by a human count, and we will rely more
on the automated system.
***If you notice any inconsistencies, please send email to:
hart AT pglaf DOT org
For example, last week we reported 40 new eBooks, but in recounts
it appears that we counted three extras. These three have been a
consistent source of extra counts or short counts over the month.
*
New Site!!!
New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors
http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm
which now indexes 24,000 books available free online, including all
PG(US) & PG(Aus)'s books, along with some basic date information
about them and their authors where you can find more.
For information please contact Philip Harper
<webmaster AT kingkong.demon.co.uk>
*
WANTED!
>>> !!!People to help us collect ALL public domain eBooks!!! <<<
*
Wanted: People who are involved in conversations on Slashdot, Salon, etc.
*
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
40 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones*
***500 eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971***
17,210 eBooks As Of Today!!!
[Includes Australian eBooks]
We Are 86% of the Way to 20,000!!!
14,148 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's 250+ eBooks per Month for ~56 Months
We Have Produced 2254 eBooks in 2005!!!
2,890 to go to 20,000!!!
7,494 from Distributed Proofreaders
Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B]
We have now averaged 500+ eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971
We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Are Averaging About 258 books Per Month This Year
[This change is due to the opening of Project Gutenberg
sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org;
all Project Gutenberg sites have a higher grand total.]
This Site Is Averaging About 60 eBooks Per Week This Year
40 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 ~1.75 years from Oct. 2003 to Aug. 2005 from 10,000 to 17,000
*
***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. Note well
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.]
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
EU DATA-RETENTION PLANS DRAW CRITICISM
Peter Hustinx, data protection supervisor for the European Union (EU),
has voiced his criticism of two antiterrorism proposals for their
stance on data retention. Neither the proposal by the European
Commission nor one drafted by EU governments makes a compelling case
for holding on to sensitive data as part of antiterrorism efforts, said
Hustinx. The EU proposal, he noted, would allow for the retention of
information such as times of phone calls for up to three years. Hustinx
said that any measures put forth should comply with the European
Convention on Human Rights. Those that do not are "not just
unacceptable but illegal." The chair of the EU negotiations, British
Home Secretary Charles Clarke, is urging European governments to forgo
some measure of civil liberties in return for broader authority for law
enforcement to investigate suspected terrorists.
San Jose Mercury News, 26 September 2005
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12746814.htm
NEW TOOLS RATE SAFETY OF WEB SITES
Two new tools from GeoTrust offer Internet users another layer of
protection against a range of online scams. The TrustWatch Search site
and TrustWatch Toolbar both provide indications about the probable
reliability of sites users are visiting, in an effort to help consumers
avoid being victimized by phishing scams or by other forms of
fraudulent Web sites. The tools evaluate sites for security practices
such as certain forms of authentication or use of a Secure Sockets
Layer certificate. Sites are also screened against a black list of
known fraud sites and checked for patterns that would indicate
potentially malicious intent. Users are shown a green signal to
indicate a verified site, a yellow signal for suspect sites, and a red
signal for sites that cannot be verified. The toolbar provides users
with a real-time screen for sites they visit; the search site returns
search results--powered by Ask Jeeves--with one of the three indicators
for each site returned.
CNET, 25 September 2005
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-5879068.html
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***
*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
[As requested adding sources, etc., when possible.]
EVOLUTION LAWSUIT OPENS IN PENNSYLVANIA
from The New York Times (Registration Required)
HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 26 - Intelligent design is not science, has no
support from any major American scientific organization and does not belong
in a public school science classroom, a prominent biologist testified on the
opening day of the nation's first legal battle over whether it is permissible
to teach the fledgling "design" theory as an alternative to evolution.
"To my knowledge, every single scientific society that has taken a position
on this issue has taken a position against intelligent design and in favor
of evolution," said the biologist, Kenneth R. Miller, a professor at Brown
University and the co-author of the widely used high school textbook "Biology."
Eleven parents in the small town of Dover, just south of here, are suing
their school board for introducing intelligent design in the ninth-grade
biology curriculum. The parents accuse the board of injecting religious
creationism into science classes in the guise of intelligent design.
Professor Miller, their main expert witness, was the only person to take
the stand on Monday.
http://tinyurl.com/dpds7
*
"You know that the arrest of Mr. Safavian, one of three known Abramoff
alumni to migrate into the administration, is the start of something big.
Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department announced it only after Mr. Safavian
had appeared in court and had been released without bail. The gambit was
clearly intended to keep the story off television, and it worked."
"Safavian's arrest comes less than a year after a high-level Air Force
procurement official, Darleen Druyun, went to prison for trading
favorable multibillion-dollar contracts for a top job with Boeing Co."
Safavian was in charge of procurement of all the hurrican relief
until he was brought up on charges. The specific charges are that
he lied to a General Services Administration Ethics Officer,
and other investigators about the Abramoff Scottish golf junket.
In addition there were properties owned by the US government
in DC and MD that were allegedly going to be sold to Safavian
for his own private development plans.
Safavian and Abramoff worked at Preston Gates Ellis' law firm
starting in early 1995. They both moved to the area of various
gambling interests, including Indian casinos in later in the 90s.
Safavian's wife, Jennifer is Chief Counsel for Oversight and
Investigations on the House Government Reform Committee,
which is chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va. Abramoff was recently
indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges by a federal grand jury,
re: attempts to buy a number of Flordia gaming ships, and is still
under Conngressional investigation for alegedly swindling millions
from the very Indian tribes he was hired by as their lobbyist.
The New York Times 9/25
[Remember that in the news business, Friday is called "Garbage Day."
Stories that are meant not to be reported are done or released on a
Friday so that by Monday, when everyone is back in the news loop,
the story is already dead. The charges were filed Friday Sept. 16,
and it was very quietly all over by Monday morning.]
*STRANGE WORDS OF THE WEEK
"Many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway,"
she said after touring the Astrodome, "so this is working very well for them.")
Barbara Bush, as quoted in the New York Times 9/25
*STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"To my knowledge, every single scientific society that has taken a position
on this issue has taken a position against intelligent design and in favor
of evolution," said the biologist, Kenneth R. Miller, a professor at Brown
University and the co-author of the widely used high school textbook "Biology."
[Previously, there has been no report that this was so unanimous.]
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
More than 50% of the US populations lives within 50 miles of a coastline.
". . .authorities were sufficiently concerned about hurricanes that
last year they pre-positioned 10,000 body bags in New Orleans."
New York Times 9/25
*
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
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
the Heavens mourn
the passing of the day
with tears of rain and
wonder of thunder
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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