[gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Jun 28 09:51:02 PDT 2006
pt1a3.606
pt1b3.606
Weekly_June_28.txt
***The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, June 28, 2006 PT1***
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971********
*
This is my last day here as I prepare to leave for a month of travel on
the East Coast [of the US], to be best man at my best friend's wedding,
to see my Mom and my brother, whom I have not seen in ages, and to give
a few presentations along the way. I plan to be in Connecticut for the
first week, not sure of the dates for D.C. and Boston yet, and back for
the last week in Connecticut and New York City, after June 19 or so.
We are preparing another Newsletter Editor as we speak, and you will be
hearing from him next week on July 5, if all goes well.
The counting program died last week, and my emailer killed some so it's
going to be just George and me counting, sorry.
Michael
*
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
*
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:
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*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
31 New This Week From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
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0 New This Week From PG PrePrints
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108 New This Week [Including PG Australia, PG Europe and PrePrints]
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
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*eBook Milestones*
20,102 eBooks As Of Today At These Four PG Sites
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326 Gutenberg Europe [+8] [Including after July 4]
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106 Total New Books This Week [On schedule for 91]
20,097 Grand Total of all four sites
20,102 [via our automated program, by hand]
[Please note we have several counting methods,
and they often differ by several book that we
have to hunt down by hand to reconcile.]
~1% of the way from 20,000 to 30,000
***569 eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971***
16,823 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's ~261 eBooks per Month for ~64.25 Months
1,954 New eBooks in 2006 at These Four Sites
42 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders
8,649 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 ~340 eBooks Per Month This Year!!!
[Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints]
All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 78 eBooks Per Week In 2006
108 This Week
482 This Month [Jun]
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~12.5 years from Jan. 1994 to Jun. 2006 to go from 100 to 20,100
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 ~2.8 years from Oct. 2003 to Jun. 2006 from 10,000 to 20,000
*
[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]
[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
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we have a place to put them.
[Daily PrePrints stats at http://preprints.readingroo.ms/]
Please note that sometimes it takes a few weeks for entire
collections to fully appear in the PrePrints Section, thus
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PrePrint files are just that, PrePrints, and thus may move
later to other locations, including the main collection or
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center, etc. For example,
on June 14, 200 WAP compatible cell phone eBooks appeared,
and will likely be moved to other collection points later.
The entire process of working out the details just to send
them to the PrePrints Section took well over a month.
Even with the speeded up process of the PrePrints Section,
it still takes a certain amount of time to collect and put
such a large collection online in a proper manner.
*
75,000+ eBooks at the PG Consortia Center
http://www.gutenberg.cc
[Including after July 4]
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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
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
***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B***
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
CANADIAN PROJECT AIMS TO COORDINATE DISPARATE EFFORTS
A new initiative called AlouetteCanada is designed to bring together
disparate digitization efforts from around Canada into a single online
location. Many universities and museums in the country maintain
small-scale digitization efforts of material relevant to the history
and culture of Canada. Much of this content is inaccessible to most
people, however, according to Carole Moore, chief librarian of the
University of Toronto, one of the universities participating in
AlouetteCanada. The University of Alberta and the University of
Brunswick are also part of the project, and Moore said hundreds of
other organizations could conceivably contribute material. Ernie
Ingles, chief librarian at the University of Alberta, said
AlouetteCanada is, in some ways, the antithesis of Google's
book-scanning project. Although Google is making content available
publicly, he said, "it is making that content available in a commercial
way." Ingles questioned whether Google would be around forever to make
that content available.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 June 2006 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/06/2006062101t.htm
RESEARCHERS CLAIM FASTEST SILICON CHIP
A team of academic and industry researchers has demonstrated a speed
of 500 gigahertz for a silicon-based computer chip they developed.
The team included individuals from the Georgia Institute of Technology,
Korea University in South Korea, and IBM. To reach 500 gigahertz, which
is about 250 times faster than many chips used today, the researchers
conducted the test in an environment 451 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit);
at room temperature, the chip reportedly still reaches speeds of around
350 gigahertz. Technology consultant Dan Olds said the announcement
indicates that "we're not coming anywhere near the end in what
processors are capable of." IBM's Bernard Meyerson said the chips,
which might be available in consumer devices within two years,
could lead to significant leaps in the capabilities of computing devices.
New York Times, 20 June 2006 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/technology/20chip.html
ETHICAL HACKING PROGRAM TO REQUIRE BACKGROUND CHECK
Students who want to take part in an ethical hacking program at the
University of Abertay in Scotland will be required to pass a background
check to weed out those who might apply the skills learned in the
program to malicious ends. University officials will work with the Home
Office and a Scottish disclosure service to screen applicants, looking
for anyone with a criminal background. The program, called Ethical
Hacking and Countermeasures, is a four-year degree intended to teach
hacking skills to students who will then work with businesses to
prevent hackers from doing damage to computer systems and data.
It is the first program of its kind in the United Kingdom.
Responding to concerns that the program will simply create more hackers,
Lachlan McKinnon, a professor in the program, said the university will
do all it can to ensure students use their skills in a positive manner.
He added, however, that there are no guarantees. "Harold Shipman
qualified as a doctor, after all," he said, "before deciding
to become a murderer."
The Register, 19 June 2006
http://www.theregister.com/2006/06/19/hackers_background/
GOOGLE DEBUTS SHAKESPEARE SITE
Google has launched a new Web site specifically for the works of
William Shakespeare and related resources. At the site, users have
access to the full texts of Shakespeare's 37 plays and can search
those texts for words or phrases. The site also has links to academic
resources concerning the plays, online groups that focus on
Shakespeare, and videos of stage productions of Shakespeare's plays.
The site also points users toward Google Earth, which coordinates maps
of the globe with Internet searching. With Google Earth, users can
locate the Globe Theatre in London and find other resources with
information about the site. The site was introduced as part of
Google's sponsoring of New York's "Shakespeare in the Park."
USA Today, 14 June 2006
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-06-14-shakespeare-google_x.htm
WIKIPEDIA ADJUSTS EDITING POLICY
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia based on the model that anyone can
contribute to or edit any entry, has placed new restrictions on
editing. Certain entries in any reference work are bound to be
contentious, and with Wikipedia, disagreements can escalate to a
"revert war," in which competing factions simply change an entry back
and forth to reflect their opinions. Such disputes have resulted in a
status of "protected" for 82 entries, meaning they cannot be changed at
all, and a status of "semi-protected" for another 179 entries.
Semi-protected entries can only be changed by someone who has been a
registered user for more than four days, the idea being that such a
"cooling off" period will avoid most of the problems resulting from
disagreements. Despite the steps Wikipedia has taken away from the
ideal of "anyone can edit," founder Jimmy Wales says the resource works
and is valuable. Most entries are only protected for a short period of
time, he said, and they represent a fraction of the 1.2 million entries
in the English-language version.
New York Times, 17 June 2006 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html
DOE CONTRACTS FOR PETAFLOP SUPERCOMPUTER
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has ordered the first petaflop
supercomputing system and an upgrade of its Blue Gene system from Cray.
DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced the $200 million
arrangement last week, with plans for completion of the new
supercomputer in 2008. The new system reportedly will attain 1,000
trillion floating-point operations per second (teraflops), or one
petaflop. Oak Ridge scientists plan to use the system to tackle
problems in energy, biology, and nanotechnology. The lab also expects
to offer computing time to other researchers through a program that
grants supercomputer access to academic and corporate institutions.
Federal Computer Week, 26 June 2006
http://www.fcw.com/article95010-06-26-06-Web
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*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
"We follow the law."
This reply was repeatedly thrown in the face of Senator Arlen Specter
in recent hearings, to determine the scope of the release of national
telephone users' information to the intelligence communities, by AT&T
CEO Edward Whitacre, as he time and again refused to answer questions
directing him to inform the Senate whether AT&T had or had not sent a
plethora of information for intelligence gathering operations.
In the wake of the revelations by The New York Times that such a data
mining opportunity was being given to the NSA, CIA, FBI, etc., many a
Senator and Congressperson has raised the same question.
Harsh criticism of The New York Times ensued, even though they sat on
the story for a year before publishing it, and only published it when
it became obvious it was going to be published elsewhere.
[Note that The Washington Post got scooped on the "Ivy Bells" story--
mentioned in last week's Newsletter, when President Reagan convinced,
in a personal phone call to their publisher, them not to run it for a
few days, but then someone leaked it to NBC. Whether this was in the
way of retaliation for The Washington Post forcing President Nixon to
resign over The Watergate Affairs no one is actually saying aloud.]
Here are the direct quotations from the current hearings:
Specter: Does AT&T provide customer information to any law enforcement agency?
Whitacre: We follow the law, senator.
Specter: That is not an answer Mr. Whitacre, you know that.
Whitacre: That's all I'm gonnna say, is we follow the law. It is an answer.
I'm telling you we don't violate the law, we follow the law.
Specter: Now, that's a legal conclusion, Mr. Whitacre. You may be
right or you may be wrong, but I'm asking you for a factual matter --
does your company provide information to the federal government or any
law enforcement agency, information about customers?
Whitacre: If it's legal and we're requested to do so, of course we do.
Specter: Have you?
Whitacre: All I'm going to say is we follow the law.
Specter: That's not an answer, it's not an answer, it's an evasion.
Whitacre: It's an answer.
Specter: If you're under instructions by the federal government...
Whitacre: We follow the law, senator.
Specter: You've said that. I don't care to hear it again.
Whitacre: I don't care to repeat it again, but we do.
Specter: Well then, don't. If you're under instructions by the federal
government as a matter of state secrecy not to talk, say so.
Whitacre: Senator, we follow the law.
Specter: Well, I think that answer is contemptuous of this committee.
Specter finally forced Whitacre to admit that any response by him
would violate what he had been instructed was "classified information."
Source: ABC
MORE DOUBLESPEAK
The Senate refused to repeal 100% of the estate tax that had been
vilified as "The Death Tax," by embattled White House guru Karl Rove,
but in the end it will cost the real taxpayers just as much, as the
deal is being engineered by repealing what may be all timber company
taxes to win over Senate votes from timber rich Washington State.
All in all The Estate Tax is being repealed for all but the richest
1% or less in the country, and it should be mentioned that that 1%
owns half of everything that can be owned in the United States.
Source: The Washington Post
[I wonder how rest of the country would react to all this if that 1%
actually lived on their blocks, and owned half the land, half the cars,
half the stocks, bonds, cash, boats, etc. while the next 2% owned half
of what was left, and the next 4% owned half of that, etc. . .leaving
only a few percent to be earned by 90% of the block's residents???]
*QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"We follow the law."
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
It will eventually be determined that there has been an overall
pattern of divulging the personal information of U.S. citizens.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
72% of troops in Iraq say we should get out by the end of 2006.
21% say out now.
Source: Zogby, and various sources that quoted the polls also
done by Le Moyne College.
[As a result, only 6 Senators voted to end the war by year end
this week]
Americans Lose Touch, Report Fewer Close Friends
In the last 20 years the number of close friends reported
by Americans has dropped from about 3 to 2.
In 1985 2.94 friends a person could discuss the important
issues of their lives with were reported.
In 2004 that had dropped to 2.08, a drop of .043 per year
for those 20 years which would be down to about 2 friends
by now, in mid-2006.
Not only do Americans have fewer persons they can discuss
important matters with, but those they do have are family
rather than the traditional friends we tend to think of.
"This change indicates something that's not good for our society,"
said Lynn Smith-Lovin, Professor of Sociology at Duke University.
The study appears in the June American Sociological Review.
[This supports the growing realization that millions of people in
the United States know Oprah Winfrey better than their neighbors]
Source: LiveScience.com
[Perhaps this is why MySpace has 87 million subscribers!]
*
The Big 10 Opens Its Own Television Channel
In an effort to bring in more money from collegiate sport events
The Big 10 has opted to create its very own source of income for
their sporting events for the next 20 years, and should reap the
amount of an extra $7.5 million per year as a result.
The only trouble is that right now you will have to subscribe to
DirecTV to get it.
For at least the first 10 years of this, there should be some of
the normal television coverage of the past, as The Big 10 is now
also reported to have inked lucrative deals with Disney's sports
coverage, from their ESPN and ABC television subsidiaries.
Viewers will have to subcribe to The Big 10 Channel [BTC] via an
opt-in selection to DirecTV's Total Choice package, available to
just over 15 million households.
This isn't the first collegiate sports collective to do this and
it certainly won't be the last. Believe it or not, The Big 10's
action on this was taken from some little known Western Mountain
college conference.
[Just one more step on the way to "pay per everything." Whether
you pay per month, week, day, or per event, it's still pay per.]
DirecTV's Total Choice package costs $41.99 per month.
Source: TV Week, Various Big 10 press releases.
and www.usdirect.com/programming/total_choice.php
*
The "Tahiti" oil well is going down further beneath sea level than
Mt. Everest goes above sea level.
*
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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