[gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Apr 26 09:39:19 PDT 2006
pt1a3.406
Weekly_April_26.txt
**The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, April 26, 2006 PT1**
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971********
Please note some previous miscounts still not corrected, but the grand totals
should be fairly accurate, just have to go back and fix the interim counts.
*
Editor's comments appear in [brackets].
Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart at pobox.com or gbnewby at pglaf.org
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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
6 New This Week From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
3 New This Week From PGEu [European Copyrights, Life + 50 and 70]
9 New This Week From PG PrePrints
55 New This Week To Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
73 New This Week [Including PG Australia, PG Europe and PrePrints]
[I'm sure there are a still few bugs in the new accounting]
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
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*eBook Milestones*
19,231 eBooks As Of Today!!!
769 to go to 20,000!!!
18,788 at www.gutenberg.org[+61]
570 Australian eBooks [+6] [Included in above line]
293 Gutenberg Europe [+3]
150 PG PrePrint Site [+9]
19,231 Grand Total of all four sites [Corrected +6]
73 New eBooks This Week
~96% of the Way to 20,000
***550+ eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971***
16,163 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's ~258 eBooks per Month for ~62.75 Months
We Have Produced 1,083 eBooks in 2006
769 to go to 20,000!!!
42 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders
8,348 total from Distributed Proofreaders
Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B]
[Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers]
We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005
[Including PG Australia]
We Are Averaging ~294 eBooks Per Month This Year
[Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints]
All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 68 eBooks Per Week In 2006
73 This Week
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~32 months, from 2003 to 2006 for our last 10,000 eBooks
It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100
It took ~2.5 years from Oct. 2003 to Mar. 2006 from 10,000 to 19,000
[The above changes due to the opening of Project Gutenberg
sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org]
[Now including totals from Australia, Europe and PrePrints]
[Apologies, it will take a while to integrate everything
not all statistics may be totally equalized yet]
[PGEu Statistics Are Counted Monthly Not Weekly]
[Daily PGEu stats at http://dp.rastko.net/default.php]
[Daily DP stats at http://www.pgdp.net]
BTW, we just started a new "PrePrints" site at PG,
so if you come across eBooks that aren't ready for
primetime, but that should be saved for upgrading,
we have a place to put them.
http://preprints.readingroo.ms/ new site
*
~75,000 eBooks at the PG Consortia Center
http://www.gutenberg.cc
*
***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
FREE INTERNET REFERENCE SITE
LivingInternet.com provides a 700-odd page reference about the Internet
"to provide living context and perspective to this most technological
of human inventions", and has received input from many people that helped
build the Internet. It currently receives about 3 thousand visitors a day,
many from educational institutions. Now in its 7th year of operation.
http://www.livinginternet.com/
TEXT TO SPEECH
Dolphin Producer is a new software package which will convert a text
document into a fully synchronized text and audio DTB at the push of a
single button. The DTB can then be played back using Dolphin's
EaseReader software player - which is included in Dolphin Producer.
The DTB can also be played back on any other DAISY DTB software or
hardware player, as well as any MP3 player - The choice is yours.
http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk or http://www.dolphinusa.com
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
COPYRIGHT LAW UPDATE FAVORS COPYRIGHT HOLDERS
Despite pressure from a number of quarters to introduce restrictions on
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress appears to be headed the
other direction. Drafts of the Intellectual Property Protection Act of
2006 are circulating among lawmakers, and a spokesperson for the House
Judiciary Committee said the bill will likely be introduced soon. The
bill adds a number of new layers to copyright law, including increasing
fines for certain copyright crimes; criminalizing attempted copyright
violations, even if they fail; and allowing copyright owners to impound
"records documenting the manufacture, sale, or receipt of items
involved in" violations. Jason Schultz, staff attorney at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, said of this last provision that the
recording industry has long wanted the ability to obtain server logs
that would indicate "every single person who's ever downloaded"
certain files. Keith Kupferschmid, vice president for intellectual
property and enforcement at the Software and Information Industry
Association, welcomed the bill, saying that it gives government
officials needed authority to prosecute intellectual property criminals.
CNET, 23 April 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6064016.html
COMPANY TO PAY $4.5 MILLION IN E-RATE FRAUD CASE
Houston-based NextiraOne has agreed to pay $4.5 million to settle
charges that it defrauded the government and the Oglala Nation
Educational Coalition through the federal E-rate program. The work for
which NextiraOne was under investigation took place at the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota. According to a complaint by the Department
of Justice, NextiraOne billed the government for products and services
it did not deliver; submitted fraudulent invoices; and charged inflated
prices for other products. The E-rate program, designed to extend
Internet access to schools and libraries that could not otherwise
afford it, has come under fire for what some have described as rampant
fraud. Under the settlement, NextiraOne will pay a criminal fine of
$1.9 million and will return $2.6 million to the government.
ITWorld, 21 April 2006
http://www.itworld.com/Man/2681/060421erate/
TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR CHARGED WITH E-RATE FRAUD
Federal charges have been brought against a technology director in
South Carolina for defrauding the E-rate program, a federal program to
fund technology improvements in disadvantaged schools. Cynthia K. Ayer
was indicted on 12 counts of mail and wire fraud for funneling
contracts worth $3.5 million to her company, Go Between Communications.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Ayer's actions netted
her more than $450,000 of E-rate funds. Ayer faces fines of $250,000
and a lengthy prison term if convicted. The E-rate program has been
riddled with accounts of fraud and abuse, and Ayer's case is just the
latest in a string of prosecutions against 11 individuals and 10
companies. Thus far, settlements with some defendants have totaled $40
million in fines and restitution, and two individuals have been
sentenced to prison terms.
Internet News, 20 April 2006
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3600671
NATIONAL ARCHIVES GOES TRANSPARENT
The National Archives and Records Administration has made public the
details of a secret agreement made in 2001 with the CIA and said it
will adjust its procedures to function in a much more transparent
manner. The secret deal gave the CIA the authority to insist that
certain materials in the archives be removed, with no record of the
documents' having been in the archives or why they were removed. Allen
Weinstein, who currently heads the archives but did not when the deal
was made, said he just learned of it and has acted quickly to
invalidate it. "Classified agreements are the antithesis of our reason
for being," he said. A spokesperson from the archives noted that it
routinely archives classified materials and keeps them secret. Adding
another layer of secrecy is unnecessary and inappropriate, she said.
Steven Aftergood, director of a project at the Federation of American
Scientists that tracks government secrecy, applauded the announcement,
particularly Weinstein's role in it. "He did not attempt to deny the
existence of the problem," said Aftergood, "and he did not attempt to
evade responsibility for it."
Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 April 2006 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/04/2006041901t.htm
SETTLEMENT REACHED IN ANTISPYWARE CASE
In a settlement announced by prosecutors in Washington State, Zhijian
Chen of Oregon will pay about $84,000 in fines, restitution, and
attorneys' fees following a scheme in which Chen sold consumers
fraudulent antispyware services. Chen was charged with sending e-mail
that led recipients to believe their computers were infected with
spyware and that a product called Spyware Cleaner, made by Secure
Computer, could clean their machines. Chen then collected a commission
when users bought the product. State Attorney General Rob McKenna said,
"We will not tolerate those who try to profit by preying on consumers'
fears of spyware and other malware." New York-based Secure Computer as
well as a number of officials from the company are also named in the
lawsuit against Chen.
Associated Press, 19 April 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060419/ap_on_hi_te/spam_lawsuit
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*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
Senate Inquiry:
New Hampshire "Denial of Service" Attack on Democrats' Phones
This past week saw some interesting revelations in the case of
similar "political dirty tricks" in recent elections as were
mentioned in the famous "All the Presidents Men" stories by
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post that
brought down President Nixon.
Revealed were dozens of phone calls to The White House
on the day before the mid-term 2002 elections, by the
man who was convicted, and the fact that National Republican
Party funds were used to pay over $2.5 million in legal bills,
and perhaps even super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff was involved.
James Tobin, head of the New England branch of the Republican
National Committee, later a director of President Bush's second
presidential campaign, was convicted re: jamming the phones of
of five locations of various Democratic efforts to get voters
out on election day. In addition, was a similar attack on a
local firefighter's effort to give transportation to polls.
www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=138550
*
Follow Up On "General's Revolt"
Apparently the Generals lined up by the the administrtion to counter
the "Revolt of the Generals" have been given a list of talking points
or script suggestions for their appearances in the media. Why it is
OK for the generals to support one side of the issue but not the other
seems to be the elephant in the middle of the room being ignored.
*
The War of Classified Materials, April 25, 2006
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart is being quoted as saying,
"When everything is classified, nothing is classified," in a recent
flap over the various levels of secrecy and governmenk leaks.
In a rather stunning double whammy from opposite directions, recent
coverage by Dana Priest, National Security Correspondent writing for
The Washington Post, won a Pulitzer Prize for her columns revealing
the wide ranging government wiretaps without court approval, while
her alleged source, Mary McCarthy, was being fired from the CIA.
Sources from the Post, including McCarthy, have said that McCarthy
didn't even have access to the information she allegedly leaked.
Apparently the Bush administration has tightened up the classified
information business to the point where less and less information
is unclassified, thus relying more and more on leaks, unscheduled
on-the-spot declassification, etc., to provide information to the
public and the mass media.
As a result of this tightening of the informational purse strings,
more and more Washington sources are simply saying, "I can't talk
to you any more," and the reporters are learning not to keep notes
via any of the standard means that can be found to uncover sources.
Thus computers are OUT these days as a tool for working on articles
since the government routinely siezes all computers and files in an
ongoing investigation of these matters.
Apparently the number of classified documents doubled during Bush's
re-election campaign in 2004 and has continued to rise, according to
Lucy Dalglish, speaking on The News Hour.
*
Recently Revealed: Was Chicago Bulls Player Fired and Blacklisted
for Giving President Bush a Letter Concerning Iraq During a White
House Visit by the Team After Their First Repeat as NBA Champions?
Craig Hodges, a member of the first two Chicago Bulls Championship
NBA basketball teams, claims he was not only fired by the Bulls
for speaking out on political issues as an African-American, but
also blacklisted by the entire NBA as a result when he could not
even get a tryout with any one of the NBA franshices afterwards.
The court case Craig Hodges vs. the National Basketball Association
alleges "the owners and operators of the 29 NBA member franchises
have participated as co-conspirators" in "blackballing" him from
the entire National Basketball Association "because of his outspoken
political nature as an African-American man."
Hodges was a 10 year NBA veteran, the last four years with the Bulls,
and he played in the majority of the Bulls' games during their second
consecutive NBA Championship.
classdat.appstate.edu/AAS/Soc/rosenberge/MyFiles/NYTIMES/NYTSPRTB.IZ
*
Trying to look up "American Dreamz" ? only local media found:
The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA
Free preview planned
of `American Dreamz'
The American dream is alive and well. What could be more free than a
free movie?
The University of Oregon Cultural Forum and the Bijou Art Cinemas, 492
E. 13th Ave., will present a free showing of the Paul Weitz film
"American Dreamz" Tuesday at 8 p.m.
Vouchers are available at the Cultural Forum office in the Erb
Memorial Union, 1222 E. 13th Ave. If any are unclaimed, they will be
available at the door.
Weitz ("In Good Company," "About a Boy") wrote and directed the film
for Universal Studios. It will open nationally on April 21.
advertisement
The movie stars Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Marcia Gay
Harden, Chris Klein, Jennifer Coolidge and Willem Dafoe. In the film,
"American Dreamz" is a popular singing competition.
"Imagine a country where the president never reads the newspaper,
where the government goes to war for all the wrong reasons and where
more people vote for a pop idol than their next president."
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
Around 6AM Sunday morning two widely separated estimates for
the cost of health care per person in the US on the radio.
NPR said $800 per month, $9,600 per year. WILL-AM
94.5 said $11 per month or $132 per year. WLRW-FM
*STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK
Congressman Chistopher Smith, R-New Jersey, re: Google.cn:
"China's search engine, is guaranteed to take you to the
virtual land of deceit, disinformation and the big lie."
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
Replicators that can build copies of themselves will appear this year!
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
In 1960 people in the U.S. spent about 5% of their money on health care.
In 2005 people in the U.S. spent about 16% of their money on health care.
In the same period that health spending tripled per person,
spending on education failed to even double.
The U.S. has a universal education plan, but not universal health care,
so why is spending on universal education lagging behind?
The U.S. is regularly outclassed by one or two dozen other countries
in standardized educational testing.
The Common Sense Budget Act of 2006 cites the following:
(E) research conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics
shows that middle school students in the United States rank 18th in
science test scores and 19th in math test scores internationally,
behind students in such countries as the Republic of Korea, the Slovak
Republic, Singapore, the Russian Federation, and Malaysia. . . .
[Longer lists available on request]
Medical: The U.S. spends about $1.8 Trillion per year.
Schools: The U.S. spends about $0.5 Trillion per year.
Sources: The weekend news programs on NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC.
BTW, if the $1.8 Trillion medical figure is accurate,
along with the $9 Trillion GDP, then medical is 20%,
not the 16% cited.
3.6% on Education.
On the international math tests the U.S. ranked 24th and 28th
for recent tests among middle schools, 12th for grade schools.
In science the U.S. was 17th.
Down from 3rd for 4th graders.
[More data available on request]
*
Oldest Ice Core Dated At 1 Million Years, As of April 18, 2006
Japanese scientists are examining a 1 million year old chunk of ice
removed from a spot 3 kilometers under the Antarctic ice cap surface.
The previously oldest ice cores from about 650,000 years ago revealed
that we now have much higher levels of carbon dioxide and methane in
the atmosphere than any time previously measured in this manner.
www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/18/old.ice.reut/index.html
*
Exxon's CEO Lee Raymond Receives $1 Billion In Total Compensation
After a little over a decade at the wheel of the largest oil company,
it appears that Lee Raymond's total compensation for that period will
be approximately one billion dollars, with hearly half of that coming
in various forms of separation pay and bonuses.
In papers filed with with the Securities and Exchange Commission this
past month, it was revealed that Mr. Raymond will receive nearly $.5
billion in total retirement compensations along with his previous pay
bonuses over the years, this in addition to his yearly salaries from
the last 12 years or so. Nearly $.4 billion of this was revealed in
the recently filed SEC documents.
Raymond's final annual paycheck totaled over $50 million, or $140,000
per day, or nearly $6,000 per hour, waking or sleeping. . .four times
the pay of Chevron's CEO, Exxon's nearest competitor.
During Raymond's reign, Exxon stoct is reported to have gone up 500%,
but don't forget that most people forget that to go up 100% doubles,
so they usually miss by 100% in such reports.
There is a shareholder revolt of sorts going on to pass resolutions
condemning such exorbitant pay practices, which Exxon encourages the
shareholdes to vote against.
abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1841989
*
Kate Moss returned to her career as a supermodel this week
with a reported $2.5 million shoot for Nikon.
*
By the way, for those interested, the official U.S. population
estimates just passed 298 million, though many say estimations
of this nature leave out as much as 5% of the population, with
the obvious exclusion of the 11-12 million immigrant workers
now being mentioned so much in the news.
Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries.
[This one is getting a little out of date, as the US population
is obviously no longer 6% of the world. In fact, rounding to the
nearest percent, the US will soon fall from 5% to 4%.]
"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.
*
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