[gweekly] Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Sep 13 09:51:56 PDT 2006
pt1a1.906
pt1b1.906
Weekly_September_13.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday,September 13 , 2006 PT1
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******
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Starring Chris Fitzgerald ("Wicked" / "Fully Committed"),
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(John Doyle's "Company")
Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450. So Bud
Davenport and Doug Simon wrote a musical about him and they're
bringing it to Broadway. They don't have a cast, a budget, or a
producer . . . but they have a dream!
"A surefire hit ... it's so bang on the money that, were I a
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"Utterly brilliant ... the funniest and cleverest spoof I've come
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To book: call 212-352-3101 or visit
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"Contains more wit and intelligence than three decades of megashows,"
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///
For now I am leaving PT1a and PT1b combined.
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Redivide PT1 of the Weekly Newsletter into two parts.
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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
Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter
Corrections in separate section
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones*
21,211 eBooks As Of Today At These Four PG Sites
19,208 Project Gutenberg US [+ 61] [NOT Including PG Australia]
1,277 Australian eBooks [+ 41] [NOT Included in above line]
350 Gutenberg Europe [+ 19] [NOT Included in above lines]
376 PG PrePrint Site [+ 0] [NOT Inclucded in above lines]
21,211 Grand Total [+121]
21,208 [by hand count] [+121]
[Please note we have several counting methods,
and they often differ by several book that we
have to hunt down by hand to reconcile.]
[Pleast note there is some duplication between
these various collections. Volunteers needed
to take these duplications into account.]
~12% of the way from 20,000 to 30,000
80,000+ eBooks at the PG Consortia Center
http://www.gutenberg.cc [160,000 files]
[Please note that the four collections totals are eBooks that originated
as created, edited, proofread, formatted, etc., by Project Gutenberg and
its 50,000 volunteers, while the Project Gutenberg Consortia Center with
80,000+ eBooks contains entire eBook collections from 100+ eLibraries so
the production statistics given here are for some 20,000+ eBooks created
by the various teams of Project Gutenberg volunteers, for which we share
the responsibility of maintaining. The Consortia Center eBooks were and
are the responsibility of the donating eLibraries, and we would be happy
to forward any suggestions for correction to those eLibraries, but those
eBooks must be edited by the donating parties, as per their requests.]
*
18,148 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's ~266 eBooks per Month for ~68.25 Months
3,063 New eBooks in 2006 at These Four Sites
37 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders
9,038 total from Distributed Proofreaders
Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B]
[Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers]
[Note, PGDP mostly included in US eBooks]
[Note, PGEU has its own Distributed Proofreaders
whose total closely matches their grand total]
We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005
[Including PG Australia]
We Are Averaging ~371 eBooks Per Month This Year!!!
[Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints]
All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 85 eBooks Per Week In 2006
121 This Week
85 Last Week
121 This Month [Sep]
[Aug. was one of those months with 5 Wednesdays; our work week
runs from about noon Wednesday, Eastern Time Zone, for 7 days]
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
It took ~2.3 years from Jan. 2004 to Aug. 2006 from 11,000 to 21,000
[Not counting the addition of The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center]
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[Daily PrePrints stats at http://preprints.readingroo.ms/]
Please note that sometimes it takes a few weeks for entire
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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.
*
***Introduction
[Ignore for the moment]
[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:
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This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
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***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B***
pt1a1.906
pt1b1.906
Weekly_September_13.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday,September 13 , 2006 PT1
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 08.25 months of this year, PG produced 3,063 new eBooks.
It took us from Jul 1971 to Dec 2001 to produce our first 3,063 eBooks!
That's 36 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 Years!!!
121 New eBooks This Week
85 New eBooks Last Week
121 New eBooks This Month [Sep]
371 Average Per Month in 2006
266 Average Per Month in 2005 Counting 216 PGEu
248 Average Per Month in 2005 Not Counting PGEu
336 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
3068 New eBooks in 2006
3186 New eBooks in 2005 Counting 216 PGeu
> 2970 New eBooks in 2005 Not Counting PGEu
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
18,148 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 68.25 Months!
~266 books per month!
21,211 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
17,130 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,081 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
[Incl. PGAu, PGEu & PrePrints]
1,277 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
[This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted
at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ]
350 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Europe
376 Items in Project Gutenberg PrePrints
~80,000 Project Gutenberg Consortia Center
http://www.gutenberg.cc
[~160,000 files at about 2 files pers book]
You may also want to look at Project Runeberg [Scandinavian eBooks]
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Project Gutenberg began operation on July 4, 1971
Project Runeberg began operation on December 13, 1992
Distributed Proofreaders began October 22, 2000
[Became an official PG-US site in 2002]
Project Gutenberg of Australia began in August, 2001
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center started in 1997]
[Became an official PG-US site in 2003]
Project Gutenberg of Europe started January 12, 2004
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to address people at the European Union Parliament.
Project Gutenberg PrePrints Started January 25, 2006
http://preprints.readingroo.ms
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PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:
Since starting production in October 2000,
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9,038 Books to Project Gutenberg.
37 added this week.
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
The PGCC collection at http://www.gutenberg.cc has doubled
in size from the listings below, but we don't have exactly
matching collection sizes yet for a new breakdown.
There are ~160,000 separate downloadable files,
and presuming 50% are reduntant or are required
at the level of more than one file per book:
The number of individual eBooks now is about 80,000.
Thus the grand total of eBooks at Project Gutenberg
is 21,000+ created by Project Gutenberg volunteers,
plus 80,000 donated from over 100 other eLibraries,
to create a downloadble library of 100,000+ eBooks
plus 80,000 donated from over 100 other eLibraries,
to create a downloadble library of 100,000+ eBooks
!
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PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings
of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as:
[This list is being updated as the moment, you can get
the entire list on the collections pages at gutenberg.cc]
Alex-Wire Tap Collection, 2,036 HTML eBook Files
Black Mask Collection, 12,000 HTML eBook Files
The Coradella Bookshelf Collection, 141 eBook Files
DjVu Collection, 272 PDF and DJVU eBook Files
eBooks at Adelaide Collection, 27,709 eBook Files
Himalayan Academy, 3,400 HTML eBook Files
Internet Archive ~30,000 eBook Files [In Progress] <<<
Literal Systems Collection, 68 MP3 eBook Files
Logos Group Collection, ~34,000 TXT eBook Files
Poet's Corner Poetry Collection, 6,700 Poetry Files
Project Gutenberg Collection, 15,035 eBook Files
PGCC Chinese eBook Collection ~300 eBook files <<< Note Name Change
Renascence Editions Collection, 561 HTML eBook Files
Swami Center Collection, 78 HTML eBook Files
Tony Kline Collection, 223 HTML eBook Files
Widger Library, 2,600 HTML eBook Files
CIA's Electronic Reading Room, 2,019 Reference Files
=======Grand Total Files=========~137,142 Total Files=====
Average Size of the Collections 8,067.18 Total Files
These eBooks are catalogued as per the instructions of
their donors: some are one file per book; some have a
file for each chapter; and some even have a file for a
single page or poem. . .or are overcounted for reasons
I have not mentioned. . .each of which could cause the
overcounting or duplication of numbers.
If we presume 2 out of 3 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
~45,714 Unique eBooks
If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
~34,286 Unique eBooks
*
The new overall collection size, which has reduced the
need to account for duplications and eBooks with files
for each chapter, etc.
[160,000 files representing some 80,000+ Unique eBooks]
***
Please also note that over 25,000 eBooks are listed via
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In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar
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You can try a new IPL service at:
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It would appear that The Internet Public Library ended
its first incarnation with about 22,284 entries, which
has now been surpassed by the Online Books Page.
Still looking for more Internet Public Library info.
***
Today Is Day #252 of 2006
This Completes Week #36 and Month #08.25 [364 days this year]
112 Days/18 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
8,789 Books To Go To #30,000
We are 12% of the way from 20,000 to 30,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
85 Weekly Average in 2006
61 Weekly Average in 2005 [Counting 216 PGEu]
57 Weekly Average in 2005 [Not Counting PGEu]
78 Weekly Average in 2004
79 Weekly Average in 2003
47 Weekly Average in 2002
24 Weekly Average in 2001
52 Only ~42 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers List
[Used to be well over 100]
[This listing usually from the previous week]
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Statistical Review
In the 36 weeks of this year, we have produced 3063 new eBooks.
It took us from 07/71 to 02/02 to produce our FIRST 3063 eBooks!!!
That's 36 WEEKS as Compared to ~31 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #3063
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
[Note: books without month and year entries are now in new catalog format]
Feb 2002 The Red Man's Continent, Ellsworth Huntington [redmaxxx.xxx] 3066
[Title: The Red Man's Continent, A Chronicle of Aboriginal America]
Feb 2002 Roemische Geschichte #8, Theodor Mommsen (German) [8mommxxx.xxx] 3065
[Language: German]
Feb 2002 Roemische Geschichte #5, Theodor Mommsen (German) [5mommxxx.xxx] 3064
[Language: German]
Feb 2002 Roemische Geschichte #4, Theodor Mommsen (German) [4mommxxx.xxx] 3063
[Language: German]
Feb 2002 Roemische Geschichte #3, Theodor Mommsen (German) [3mommxxx.xxx] 3062
[Language: German]
Feb 2002 Roemische Geschichte #2, Theodor Mommsen (German) [2mommxxx.xxx] 3061
Feb 2002 Roemische Geschichte #1, Theodor Mommsen (German) [1mommxxx.xxx] 3060
[Translation: Roman History. We have books 1-5 and 8.]
[Language: German]
Feb 2002 The Iliad of Homer, trans. Andrew Lang, et al. [iliabxxx.xxx] 3059
[Tr.: Andrew Lang, M.A., Walter Leaf, Litt.D., And Ernest Myers, M.A.]
A Changed Man and Other Tales, by Thomas Hardy 3058
Feb 2002 The Common Edition: New Testament, Trans. Clontz [comedxxx.xxx] 3057C
[Tr.: Timothy E. Clontz. This is a translation of the Bible.]
Wessex Tales, by Thomas Hardy 3056
Feb 2002 Wood Beyond the World, William Morris [#7][wbydwxxx.xxx] 3055
Feb 2002 Volcanic Islands, by Charles Darwin [Darwin #16][vlcisxxx.xxx] 3054
Feb 2002 Signs of Change, William Morris [#6][sgnchxxx.xxx] 3053
Feb 2002 Works Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies, Plutarch [plutaxxx.xxx] 3052
[Title: The Complete Works Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies]
Feb 2002 An Open-Eyed Conspiracy, William Dean Howells [#7][opneyxxx.xxx] 3051
Jan 2002 Notes of a War Correspondent, R. H. Davis [#32][ntwrcxxx.xxx] 3050
Jan 2002 A Group of Noble Dames, Thomas Hardy [#15][nbldmxxx.xxx] 3049
Jan 2002 The Little Duke, Charlotte M. Yonge [#6][ltdukxxx.xxx] 3048
Jan 2002 Life's Little Ironies etc., Thomas Hardy [#14][lfirnxxx.xxx] 3047
Jan 2002 The Land of the Changing Sun, William N. Harben [lcsunxxx.xxx] 3046
Jan 2002 Last Chronicle of Barset, Anthony Trollope [#9][lacobxxx.xxx] 3045
Desperate Remedies, by Thomas Hardy 3044
Jan 2002 The Quaker Colonies, Sydney G. Fisher [quakexxx.xxx] 3043
Jan 2002 Hispanic Nations of the New World, Wm. R. Shepherd[hispnxxx.xxx] 3042
Jan 2002 The Cleveland Era, Henry Jones Ford [clevexxx.xxx] 3041
[Title: The Cleveland Era, A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics]
Jan 2002 The Boss and the Machine, Samuel P. Orth [bossmxxx.xxx] 3040
Jan 2002 Forty-Two Poems by James Elroy Flecker[Flecker #1][42pomxxx.xxx] 3039
Jan 2002 The Armies of Labor, Samuel P. Orth [laborxxx.xxx] 3038
Jan 2002 The Age of Big Business, Burton J. Hendrick [agebbxxx.xxx] 3037
Jan 2002 The Railroad Builders, John Moody [rroadxxx.xxx] 3036
Jan 2002 The Day of the Confederacy, Nathaniel Stephenson [daycoxxx.xxx] 3035
Jan 2002 The Anti-Slavery Crusade, Jesse Macy [ascruxxx.xxx] 3034
Jan 2002 The Passing of the Frontier, Emerson Hough [passfxxx.xxx] 3033
Jan 2002 The Fathers of the Constitution, Max Farrand [fathcxxx.xxx] 3032
Jan 2002 Wild Animals I Have Known, E. T. Seton [Seton #3][wldamxxx.xxx] 3031
Jan 2002 The Tavern Knight, Rafael Sabatini [Sabatini #10][tavrnxxx.xxx] 3030
Jan 2002 Real Soldiers of Fortune, Richard H. Davis [#31][resofxxx.xxx] 3029
Jan 2002 The Peterkin Papers, Lucretia P. Hale [petpaxxx.xxx] 3028
Jan 2002 The Orange Fairy Book, Andrew Lang, Ed. [Lang #29][orangxxx.xxx] 3027
Jan 2002 North of Boston, by Robert Frost [Frost #2][nobosxxx.xxx] 3026
Jan 2002 A Mountain Europa, by John Fox, Jr. [Fox #6][europxxx.xxx] 3025
Jan 2002 The Last Stetson, by John Fox, Jr. [Fox #5][lasttxxx.xxx] 3024
Jan 2002 Faust Part 1, Johann W. Von Goethe [Goethe #32][faustxxx.xxx] 3023
Jan 2002 A Cumberland Vendetta, by John Fox Jr. [Fox #4][cnvenxxx.xxx] 3022
Jan 2002 A Boy's Will, Robert Frost [Frost #1][boyswxxx.xxx] 3021
/
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet?
If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,543,829,379 that would be 21,211 x 65,438,294 = ~1.39 Trillion !!!
With 21,211 eBooks online as of September 13, 2006 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.72 from each book.
[1% world population x #eBooks] 65,438,294 x 21,211 x $.72 = ~$1 Trillion
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
[By the way, the US "popclock" is about to turn to 300 million people.]
[Just turning 299.7 million this week!]
A Trillion Dollars Given Away At Just $.47 Value Per Book To 100 Million
With 21,211 eBooks online as of September 13, 2006 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.47 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.58 when we had 17,130 eBooks a year ago.
Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population = ~100 million people.
Next Decade's Target: 15% Of The world Population = 1 billion !!! people.
At 21,211 eBooks in 35 Years and 02.25 Months We Averaged
603 Per Year
50 Per Month
1.65 Per Day
At 3063 eBooks Done In The 252 Days Of 2006 We Averaged
12.2 Per Day
85 per Week
371 Per Month
If you are interested in the population of the world or of the U.S.
you might want to know that these numbers, official as they appear,
are just just estimates, and perhaps not as accurate as we hope.
However, for those keeping track of how quickly the U.S. reaches a
300 million population level, and who noticed the passing of 298M,
just two weeks ago. . .the U.S. is already 1/6 the way to 299M, so
it will probably be 10 more weeks to 299M and 22 more to 300M.
Recently the U.S. Congress, pertaining to district reapportionment,
who gets to vote for which Congresspeople, decided that many of the
districts were undercounted by 5%, perhaps then later deciding that
all districts had been undercounted by 5% [can't recall details].
*
The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks'
production; each production-week starts/ends Wednesday noon,
starts with the first Wednesday of January. January 4th was
the first Wednesday of 2006, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2005 and began the production year of 2006 at noon.
This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B***
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
PUBLISHERS GIVE ONLINE MAGAZINES TO COLLEGE STUDENTS
The Magazine Publishers of America is sponsoring a program that will
provide free online magazine subscriptions to college students in an
effort to draw them into magazine readership. Magazine publishers have
long dealt with distribution problems for college students, who
typically change addresses frequently. At the same time, publishers are
working to understand how digital delivery fits into the larger picture
of magazine readership. During the program, students at five
institutions will have the option of subscribing to a particular
publication, a different one for each school. Students who opt in will
receive e-mails with links to the online version of the magazine, which
is identical to the printed version, including advertisements.
Organizers hope that after students graduate and settle down, they will
become subscribers and readers of the magazines' print version. Nina
Link, president and chief executive of the Magazine Publishers of
America, stressed that her organization believes that digital and print
versions are both viable but in different contexts. Other publishers
agreed. Jack Kliger, president and chief executive of Hachette
Filipacchi, said that each medium has advantages over the other but
that both are important.
New York Times, 7 September 2006 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/business/media/07adco.html
NEW KIND OF HIGH SCHOOL OPENS IN PHILADELPHIA
The city of Philadelphia and Microsoft teamed up to create a new kind
of high school, one that its designers hope will usher in different
kinds of learning to better suit the needs of today's companies. About
170 students--mostly black kids from low-income families--make up the
first freshman class of the School of the Future. The school brims with
technology--students carry laptops instead of books, the entire
facility has wireless Internet access, teachers use interactive smart
boards--but it also takes a new approach to the structure of a school
day. School runs from 9:15 a.m. to 4:19 p.m., approximating a typical
office work day, and students have appointments with teachers rather
than strict class times. As they move through lessons, students'
computers monitor how much they are learning and adjust lessons
accordingly. To graduate from the school, which is expected to have 750
students eventually, students must apply to college. Doug Lynch, vice
dean of the Graduate School of Education at The University of
Pennsylvania, said the project is interesting in that it breaks such
new ground but noted that "we have to be careful because you're
messing with kids' lives."
San Jose Mercury News, 7 September 2006
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15463748.htm
LOS ALAMOS LAB COMMISSIONS FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTER
[I don't know if I mentioned it here, but I have been predicting
that game chips would show up in supercomputers, simply because
they have so much bang for the buck]
The U.S. Department of Energy has commissioned IBM to build a
supercomputer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico that
will be as much as four times faster than the Blue Gene/L at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, currently the world's fastest
supercomputer. The new computer, dubbed Roadrunner, will use 16,000
standard processors and 16,000 so-called cell processors, which were
designed for Sony's PlayStation 3 game console. Because each cell
consists of eight individual processors, Roadrunner will be able to
achieve its speed using far fewer processors than comparable systems.
Other efforts have focused on using the power of cell processors to
solve large computing problems. Researchers at Stanford University in
August said they were working on a system that would allow PS3 game
consoles to function as a large, distributed-computing system.
According to the researchers, 10,000 game consoles would provide
roughly 1 petaflop of processing--the amount expected from Roadrunner.
The Stanford researchers said they hope eventually to recruit 100,000
game consoles to their project.
BBC, 7 September 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5322704.stm
COLLEGE PRESIDENTS EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR OPEN ACCESS
The presidents of 53 liberal arts colleges have signed a letter
supporting the Federal Public Research Access Act, which would require
free and public access to research funded by the federal government.
Librarians have for years protested the steeply rising costs of
academic journals, noting that each year they can afford fewer of the
resources that students and faculty need. Supporters of the legislation
argue it would level the playing field for researchers and would
appropriately allow public access to publicly funded science.
Publishers of academic journals and the scholarly societies they
represent lambasted the legislation, saying it would undermine peer
review and the quality of the journals. Allan Adler of the Association
of American Publishers said the legislation is "short-sighted" and is
simply an attempt by librarians to obtain for free what they have
always paid for. The academic community, however, seems inclined to
disagree. The new letter of support from college presidents follows
similar support in July from the provosts of 25 research universities.
According to the new letter, which was drafted by a library group at
Oberlin College, the legislation would "democratize access to research
information" and would "benefit education, research, and the general public."
Inside Higher Ed, 6 September 2006
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/06/access
SOUTH KENT COLLEGE DISTRIBUTES IPODS
Students at South Kent College in Dover, England, will be given free
iPod Nanos that school officials hope will be used to listen to missed
lectures. Josh Coleman, assistant principal at the school, said that
the idea to provide iPods was based on examples in the United States
and Australia for how to foster new kinds of learning. He said he does
not expect attendance in classes to decline as a result. Some critics
said the scheme is merely a gimmick to attract students. Coleman
rejected that notion, saying the program will provide long-term
benefits to the institution. Nick Seaton, chairman of an organization
called Campaign for Real Education, characterized the iPods as bribes,
saying they undercut the idea that education is valuable. "Youngsters
should want to take the courses for their own sake if they are
worthwhile," he said. Giving out iPods to students is "a scandalous
waste of taxpayers' money," Seaton concluded.
BBC, 6 September 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/5319258.stm
DIGITAL DIVIDE REMAINS FOR STUDENTS
According to new data from the National Center for Education
Statistics, despite an overall increase in computer usage among
students, minorities continue to trail in their levels of Internet
access. The data, gathered from a 2003 survey, indicate that while
two-thirds of white students use the Internet, just 47 percent of black
students and 44 percent of Hispanic students do so. Due to increasing
computer access at schools, the gaps are lower during the school day.
At home, however, 54 percent of white students have Internet access,
compared to 27 percent of black and 26 percent of Hispanic students.
Mark Lloyd, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress,
expressed strong concern about the persistence of the digital divide.
"This creates incredible barriers for minorities," he said,
"[narrowing] their ability to even think about the kind of work they
can be doing."
San Jose Mercury News, 5 September 2006
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15444856.htm
GOOGLE LAUNCHES NEWS ARCHIVE SEARCH
Google is launching a new service that provides access to archives of
news articles from several major organizations. With the new Google
News Archive Search, users can perform keyword searches and see
excerpts from the results of articles provided by participating
publishers. From there, users can click through to the archival
version, typically hosted by the content owners, where the full text of
the article is available, sometimes for free and other times for a fee.
Participating in the service are the New York Times, the Washington
Post, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, LexisNexis, and others.
The content in the service in some cases dates back to the 19th century
and earlier, giving researchers access to sources that formerly would
have been difficult or impossible to locate. Danny Sullivan, editor in
chief of SearchEngineWatch, said the service could provide new revenue
for news organizations through fees for archival stories.
Wall Street Journal, 6 September 2006 (sub. req'd)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115751253850554792.html
CONSORTIUM ANNOUNCES FREE WI-FI FOR SILICON VALLEY
A group of companies calling itself Silicon Valley Metro Connect has
announced a vast Wi-Fi network covering large portions of Silicon
Valley. The network will be the result of a solicitation from the San
Mateo County Telecommunications Authority, an agency representing
cities and counties in Silicon Valley. The agency selected Metro
Connect's bid for the project, though the deal allows cities to work
with other contractors. Metro Connect includes IBM, Cisco Systems,
Azulstar Networks, and the nonprofit SeaKay. The network, which is
expected to begin operating as early as next year, will offer speeds of
up to 1 Mbps for free or higher speeds for a fee. Nearly 2.5 million
residents of an area covering 1,500 square miles will be able to access
the network outside, though they will need to purchase boosters to use
the signal inside homes or offices.
CNET, 5 September 2006
http://news.com.com/2100-7351_3-6112569.html
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*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
*QUOTATION OF THE WEEK
"It is a part of the acceptance of the rule of law that the courts
will be able to exercise jurisdiction over the executive.
Otherwise the conduct of the executive is not defined and
restrained by law. It is because of that principle, that the USA,
deliberately seeking to put the detainees beyond the reach of the
law in Guantanamo Bay, is so shocking an affront to the principles
of democracy. That we disagree on this issue does not detract from
the fact that the USA is a close and staunch ally of the UK.
Without independent judicial control, we cannot give effect to the
essential values of our society. To give effect to our democratic
values needs the participation of executive, legislature, and
judiciary together. How well they do it, as in every endeavour,
depends on the quality of the individual decisions each branch of
the state takes. The ability to give effect to these values is not
just the morally correct position to take, though I believe it is
most certainly that. It is also a vital part of providing security
for our peoples."
Head of the British Judicary, with permission of Prime Minister
[Just this morning on the BBC]
/
History is replete with examples of such lopsided relationships
within nations or between one nation and another. Here in southern
Africa, there were cases of this nature in the former white-minority
led countries of Rhodesia and South Africa, and between these
countries and their majority-ruled neighbours. The minority
governments of the two countries were rich and militarily powerful
compared to their black subjects and the governments of their
majority-ruled neighbouring countries. It was, therefore, not
surprising that the governments of the two white-ruled states reacted
so arrogantly to the legitimate demands of their black populations
and the criticisms of their neighbouring states. They saw themselves
surviving indefinitely and comfortably, so long as they did enough to
extinguish the aspirations of their black populations and inflicted
painful-enough military punishments on their troublesome, black-ruled
neighbours. Needless to say, this was not to be.
Nelson Mandela
*STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer,
heard from many locales around the world, even those most
economically powerful and with the highest growth rates.
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
Dick Cheney on the Sunday morning news program Meet The Press:
About the Iraq War being the proper response to 9/11:
"If we had it to do over again, we'd do exactly the same thing."
"Exactly the same thing?" replied host tim Russert, giving V.P.
Cheney a graceful way out.
"Yes, sir," was Cheney's reply.
Later in the same program he said he would do things differently.
/
President Bush also rang the same note when he said
about doing the right thing: "I am often asked why
we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible
for the 9/11 attacks, the answer is that the regime
of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat."
This literally only days after gov't reports that there
was no connection, no weapons of mass destruction, etc.
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
Iraq will continue to be a quagmire, simply because
there is no plan, and never was, just like Korea in
1950 and Viet Nam in in the 1960's and 1970's.
The Iraq War will be shown to already have cost $1T.
9/11 will be shown to have already cost $1 Trillion, too.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
While al this was going on, the number of military deaths
in Iraq and Afghanistan passed 3,000, more than 9/11.
*
By the way, for those interested, the official U.S. population
estimates just passed 299 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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