[gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed May 24 09:47:15 PDT 2006
pt1a3.506
pt1b3.506
Weekly_May_24.txt
***The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, May 24, 2006 PT1***
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971********
*
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
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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
2 New This Week From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
5 New This Week From PGEu [European Copyrights, Life + 50 and 70]
6 New This Week From PG PrePrints
33 New This Week To Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
46 New This Week [Including PG Australia, PG Europe and PrePrints]
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones*
19,415 eBooks As Of Today At These Four PG Sites
540 to go to 20,000!!!
18,978 at www.gutenberg.org[+33]
582 Australian eBooks [+2] [Included in above line]
313 Gutenberg Europe [+5] [Including after July 4]
168 PG PrePrint Site [+6] [Including after July 4]
47 Total New Books This Week
19,461 Grand Total of all four sites
19,465 [via my automated program]
~97% of the Way to 20,000
***557 eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971***
16,397 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's ~257 eBooks per Month for ~63.75 Months
1,317 New eBooks in 2006 at These Four Sites
23 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders
8,473 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 ~277 eBooks Per Month This Year
[Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints]
All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 66 eBooks Per Week In 2006
47 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]
[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.
[Daily PrePrints stats at http://preprints.readingroo.ms/]
*
~75,000 eBooks at the PG Consortia Center [Including after July 4]
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]
PROGRAM AIMS TO LOWER COSTS FOR PCS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
[Do you pay half the price to start, and then 50-75 cents an hour?
Are there any interest charges, etc? What operating system?]
A new program supported by Microsoft aims to provide developing
countries with low-cost access to computer technology through a
subscription service. Under the FlexGo program, consumers pay a reduced
price for a PC and then pay for usage of the computer until it is paid off.
After buying a computer for about half of its retail value,
customers would buy time on the machine for 50 to 75 cents per hour.
When the full cost of the computer is paid, the user would then own the
machine and would not incur any more charges. Microsoft, which has
criticized Nicholas Negroponte's plan to offer $100 laptops to
developing nations, said this plan will provide users with
full-featured computers. According to Mike Wickstrand, director of
product management in the market expansion group at Microsoft,
the FlexGo program lets consumers buy "a PC that they want and
not a PC that they had to settle for." Wickstrand said the FlexGo
model accommodates the irregular incomes that many people in developing
countries have, allowing them to pay for their computer when they are able.
Silicon.com, 22 May 2006
http://hardware.silicon.com/desktops/0,39024645,39159025,00.htm
FEDS NERVOUS ABOUT LENOVO DEAL
The U.S. State Department will reportedly not use any of the computers
it recently purchased from Lenovo for classified information due to
concerns over the company's connection with the Chinese government.
Last year, Chinese computer maker Lenovo bought IBM's PC business, and
in March of this year, the State Department ordered 16,000 Lenovo
computers valued at $13 million through standard purchasing rules. When
the deal was announced, Michael Wessel, a member of the congressionally
created U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, argued that
use of the computers should be monitored in case they included code
that could be activated remotely. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chair of a
House committee with responsibility for State Department funding,
picked up those concerns, and an aide to his office confirmed that the
Lenovo machines will be restricted to non-classified uses. Officials
with Lenovo offered no immediate comment, saying they were reviewing
the decision.
CNET, 19 May 2006
http://news.com.com/2100-7350_3-6074207.html
USPTO TO REEXAMINE ONLINE TESTING PATENT
Based on concerns raised by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
about "prior art," the United States Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO) has announced it will conduct a reevaluation of a patent
granted in 2003 for online testing. The notion of prior art covers
whether the subject of a patent is indeed original--and patentable--or
whether another party had previously developed the item or technology
in question. The patent at issue was granted to Test.com for
technologies broadly related to offering tests online. If valid, the
patent would allow the company to claim patent authority over a wide
range of online testing tools deployed at colleges and universities,
and the company has already approached some institutions about
licensing the patent. According to the EFF, however, another company
offered such tools for sale at least one year before the Test.com
patent was issued. The review process is expected to take at least two
months. James J. Posch, chief executive of Test.com, noted that their
patent claim has passed muster once already. "I'll be surprised if it
doesn't survive a second time," he said. Jason Schultz, staff lawyer
at the EFF, had a different outlook, saying that he is confident the
patent will be invalidated unless Test.com discloses some secret evidence.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 May 2006 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/05/2006051901t.htm
ANTISPAM OUTFIT CRUSHED BY SPAMMER RETALIATION
An antispam start-up based in Israel has shut its doors after a barrage
of retaliatory action from spammers. In July 2005, Blue Security
launched the Blue Frog service to fight spam. Users who signed up with
the service would submit spam they received, which Blue Security would
then use to flood the servers of spammers and the merchants whose
products were advertised in those spam messages. If a spammer had a Web
site that allowed users to opt out of receiving more messages, Blue
Security would swamp those sites with opt-out requests. Officials from
Blue Security said their tactic decreased the amount of spam many of
its customers received, but it also prompted spammers to respond.
Starting in May, Blue Security was the target of a denial-of-service
attack, and Blue Security customers began receiving threats from
spammers. The prospect of further attacks from spammers, many of whom
have deep resources at their disposal, led Blue Security to end
operations. "We cannot take the responsibility for an ever-escalating
cyber war through our continued operations" said a statement on the
company's site. "We believe this is the responsible thing to do."
BBC, 17 May 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4990622.stm
RIAA SUES XM RECORDING DEVICE
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed a
federal lawsuit against XM Radio, broadcaster of digital radio,
alleging that the company's new Inno recording device will allow
"massive wholesale infringement" of copyrights. XM, which introduced
the Inno this month, had been in talks with the RIAA over royalties for
songs saved on the portable device, but those talks reportedly broke
down. In its complaint, the RIAA argued that the new device will allow
users to record any of the vast amount of content that XM broadcasts,
leaving users with "little need ever again to buy legitimate copies of
plaintiffs' sound recordings." The suit asks for $150,000 in damages
for every song recorded by XM customers. Officials from XM pointed out
that digital radio is not an on-demand service, meaning listeners can
only record what the station happens to play, unlike an online music
service such as Apple's iTunes. XM said the new device allows consumers
to record radio broadcasts, an action that has legal protection.
CNET, 17 May 2006
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-6073133.html
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*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
[As requested adding sources, etc., when possible.
Remember, the subject is not the article's subject,
the subject is the manipulation of the world news.]
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
"Equal justice under the law."
*QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, soon you
are talking about real money." [see *Statistics]
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
White collar crime will continue this growth trend.
*STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
A $10+ billion dollar accounting scheme to "cook the books"
at Fannie Mae, over the last 6 years, corrupting mortgages,
and a total of perhaps $1 trillion has passed in Fannie Mae
accounts in that that time, so detractors say it was only a
1% fudge factor. 1% of a trillion is $10 billion.
The basis for cooking the books at Fannie Mae, holder of 20
percent of all U.S. mortgages, was to generate "bonuses" of
50+ million dollars just for CEO Franklin Raines alone, but
others also had their compensation linked to performance.
Now that this performance has been determined fraudulent it
may be up to the SEC and other governmental agencis to make
the case to strip these high level executives in court.
Then Raines, Ex-CFO J. Timothy Howard and others might be a
target to be retroactively fired, and have to repay salary.
*
At the same time the CEO and FIO of the world's 3rd largest
retailer, Royal Ahold, were convicted of fraud and fined at
most $300,000 each, along with a suspended sentence.
Ex-CEO Cees van der Hoeven and Ex-CFO Michiel Meurs got the
news yesterday.
Fining a person who makes millions per year $300,000 is the
same as fining a person who makes thousands per year $300.
Source: The Kansas City Star
[Somewhere there is a big difference between justice for an
assortment of embezzlers, fraudsters, and other executively
endowed money makers and the blue collar people who do work
that send those millions and billions of the ladder.]
*
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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