pt1a2.d05 Final Edition Weekly_December_19.txt *The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, December 19, 2005 PT1* *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******** PT1A Progress Towards gutenberg.org's Goal Of 20,000 eBooks !!! 8/9 Of The Way To 20,000 eBooks !!! Imagine the 20,000 books have been separated into 9 stacks of 2,222 each, we have just now completed 8 stacks leaving just 1 stack to go: 9 Stacks GRAND TOTAL/Leaving Two Left To #20,000 8 Stacks _____ BOOKS DONE!!! (__9__( 19,998 _____ _____ (__8__( 17,776 (__8__( 17,776 1 Stack _____ _____ BOOKS TO GO!!! (__7__( 15,554 (__7__( 15,554 _____ ______ (__6__( 13,332 (__6__( 13,332 _____ _____ (__5__( 11,110 (__5__( 11,110 _____ _____ (__4__( 8,888 (__4__( 8,888 _____ _____ (__3__( 6,666 (__3__( 6,666 _____ _____ (__2__( 4,444 (__2__( 4,444 _____ _____ _____ (__1__( 2,222 (__1__( 2,222 (__1__( 2,222 GRAND TOTAL LEAVING Two Left To #20,000 BOOKS DONE!!! BOOKS TO GO!!! 9 Stacks 8 Stacks 1 Stack This as of Friday, December 14, 2005 *** Editor's comments appear in [brackets]. Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart@pobox.com or gbnewby@pglaf.org Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email hart@pobox.com * WANTED!
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* Wanted: People who are involved in conversations on Slashdot, Salon, etc. * TABLE OF CONTENTS [Search for "*eBook" or "*Intro". . .to jump to that section, etc.] *eBook Milestones *Introduction *Hot Requests, New Sites and Announcements *Continuing Requests and Announcements *Progress Report *Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report *Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report *Permanent Requests For Assistance: *Donation Information *Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections *Mirror Site Information *Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks *Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet? *Flashback *Weekly eBook update: This is now in PT2 of the Weekly Newsletter Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter Corrections in separate section 2 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 57 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones* ***517 eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971*** 17,834 eBooks As Of Today!!! [Includes Australian eBooks] We Are ~88% of the Way to 20,000!!! 14,772 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's ~250 eBooks per Month for ~59 Months We Have Produced 2878 eBooks in 2005!!! 2,166 to go to 20,000!!! 7,834 from Distributed Proofreaders Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B] 516 from Project Gutenberg of Australia 136 from Project Gutenberg of Europe [We will start including these in 2006] We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Are Averaging ~250 books Per Month This Year [This change is due to the opening of Project Gutenberg sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org] This Site Is Averaging ~58 eBooks Per Week This Year 59 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2002 to 2005 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~2.00 years from Oct. 2003 to Nov. 2005 from 10,000 to 17,500 * ***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@pobox.com and gbnewby@pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.] This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] [I think this is only the first or second time we ever included ALL the entries from a single edition of Edupage. From here:] U.S. HOUSE REQUIRES HDTV CONVERSION IN 2009 The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation requiring complete conversion to HDTV broadcasting in early 2009. The bill included funding to aid consumers with analog TV sets who watch free TV stations to purchase converter boxes. Satellite and cable TV consumers would not be affected by the digital switch. The requirements and funding were part of a larger deficit-cutting bill still to be addressed by the Senate. A major goal of the digital TV requirement is to gain radio spectrum for emergency use. [i.e. Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc?] Yahoo, 19 December 2005 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051219/ap_on_hi_te/congress_digital_tv NIST SETS DATA SPECS FOR BIOMETRIC ID CARDS The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has established and published biometric data specifications, required for federal ID cards slated for implementation in October 2006. The new specs cover fingerprints and facial image recognition. Comments on the draft specs will be accepted until January 13, 2006. [Are they hoping no one will be paying attention over the holidays?] Federal Computer Week, 16 December 2005 http://www.fcw.com/article91747-12-16-05-Web MEETING COMPLIANCE LAWS RAISES IT COSTS According to a recent Gartner study, laws on corporate governance and compliance, such as the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act, force businesses to spend more on information technology. The report predicts increases in IT budgets from 10 to 15 percent in 2006, up from roughly 5 percent in 2004. The survey included 326 audit, finance, and IT professionals in North America and Western Europe. Gartner recommended solutions that can support multiple regulations across a business to maximize effectiveness on spending for compliance. [Businesses are being forced to pay extra so the above listed agencies can spy on them?] ZDNet, 15 December 2005 http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-5996670.html EXPERT-EDITED ALTERNATIVE TO WIKIPEDIA Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia, plans to launch a project called Digital Universe that will take advantage of public input for its content but rely on acknowledged experts to edit the submissions. Material will be free, with copyrighted material available to subscribers for a fee. A number of institutions have already signed up for the project, including the American Museum of Natural History and the National Council for Science and the Environment. Sanger has raised $10 million in start-up funding. [Is the timing here just a coincidence? More on Wikipedia below.] The Register, 19 December 2005 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/19/sanger_onlinepedia_with_experts/ GOOGLE BUYS PART OF AOL Google has agreed to buy a 5 percent stake in America Online (AOL) from parent company Time Warner for $1 billion cash. The goal is dominance in the online advertising market. Microsoft competed with Google for the partnership agreement, which must still be approved by the Time Warner board. As part of the deal, Google will give AOL ads special placement on its site, a switch from its ad auction system. New York Times, 17 December 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/technology/17aol.html [To here] STUDY EVALUATES WIKIPEDIA CONTENT According to a research study published in the journal Nature, Wikipedia compares favorably with the Encyclopedia Britannica in the accuracy of its information despite recent criticisms of its content and methods. The Nature study compared articles from both Web sites on a wide range of topics, asking field experts to review the accuracy of the entries. Serious errors (such as misunderstandings of vital concepts) were evenly distributed between the two encyclopedias, with four serious errors each. As for errors of fact, omissions, or misleading text, Wikipedia had 162 such errors and Britannica had 123. The study is the first to use peer review to compare the accuracy of the two sources' coverage of science. Silicon.com, 16 December 2005 http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39155109,00.htm MICHIGAN PONDERS ONLINE REQUIREMENT High school students in Michigan will be required to take at least one online course in order to graduate under a proposal before the Michigan State Board of Education, which is expected to approve it. Mike Flanagan, the Michigan state superintendent of public instruction, offered the proposal as a way to help students in the state prepare for college and for professional lives, which he said increasingly employ technology. The board is expected to pass the new regulation, which would make Michigan the first state to require an online course for a high school diploma. Kathleen N. Straus, president of the board, said, "We think we'd be on the cutting edge" if they pass the new rule, which would still require the approval of the state legislature and the governor. The proposal would allow noncredit online courses, such as ACT prep classes, to count toward the requirement, but Flanagan said he hopes students would choose to take for-credit courses. Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 December 2005 http://chronicle.com/free/2005/12/2005121301t.htm COLLEGES JOIN THE RFID BANDWAGON A number of colleges and universities are launching academic programs that focus on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. RFID tools, which use small electronic devices to track physical goods, are seen by many as the future for management of inventories and supply chains. MBA students at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University are using a model train equipped with tiny transmitters to learn about and test RFID technology in a way that simulates a conveyor belt in a factory. As the Kelley School's Ashok Soni said, having a real conveyor belt just wasn't feasible. Meanwhile, the University of California at Irvine announced an RFID certificate program that includes courses such as "Solving Business Problems with Radio Frequency Identification Devices." Research firm Gartner estimates that the market for RFID this year will be $504 million, an increase of 39 percent over last year. The company also predicts that RFID spending will grow to $3 billion annually by the end of the decade. CNET, 13 December 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-5993692.html ONLINE EDUCATION BOOMING Analysts speaking at a conference on the business of higher education this week argued that the market for online learning, though often downplayed relative to other topics, is thriving and represents the future of for-profit education. Online music, for example, receives a lot of hype in the media, according to one analyst, but the market for online education is seven times larger than that for online music. Douglas L. Becker, CEO of Laureate Education Inc., which operates a network of international universities, said that in many parts of the world the demand for higher education far outstrips the supply. Moreover, while for-profit colleges enroll less than 5 percent of all college students, more than a third of all students taking an online course are enrolled at a for-profit institution. The conditions are ripe for online education to lead to significant growth in for-profit colleges in the coming years, according to analysts. Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 December 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/12/2005121305n.htm QUANTA TO PRODUCE MIT'S $100 LAPTOPS Computer maker Quanta has been chosen to manufacture the $100 laptops that are the brainchild of MIT's Nicholas Negroponte and supported by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organization. Based in Taiwan, Quanta is the world's largest maker of laptops, building the devices for companies including Dell and HP. Some believe that supplying the developing world with inexpensive computer technology will be a boon for educational and economic development of those nations, and the notion of an inexpensive laptop is part of that vision. Previous attempts to build and deploy similar technology have failed, and detractors argue that the $100 laptop program doesn't stand much of a chance. Nevertheless, recruiting a major hardware manufacturer signals the level of support that the project enjoys. Of the announcement, Negroponte said, "Any previous doubt that a very-low-cost laptop could be made for education in the developing world has just gone away." Silicon.com, 14 December 2005 http://hardware.silicon.com/desktops/0,39024645,39155040,00.htm CSIA GIVES FEDS D+ ON CYBERSECURITY In a report card released by the Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA), the federal government received a grade of D+ for cybersecurity. CISA gave credit to the Department of Homeland Security for establishing a new position, the assistant secretary for cybersecurity. Six months after that job was created, however, it remains unfilled. Paul Kurtz, executive director of CSIA, commented that "Cybersecurity research is in a crisis." CSIA also launched what it calls a Digital Confidence Index, a measure of public confidence in efforts to protect computers and systems. The initial rating for the index is 58 out of 100. CSIA issued a set of 13 recommendations, called the National Agenda for Information Security in 2006, designed to improve the nation's cybersecurity. Among the recommendations are calls to increase funding for cybersecurity research and to promote cooperation among federal agencies. Federal Computer Week, 13 December 2005 http://www.fcw.com/article91710-12-13-05-Web You have been reading excerpts from Edupage: If you have questions or comments about Edupage, send e-mail to: edupage@educause.edu To SUBSCRIBE to Edupage, send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU and in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName or To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 *** *HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA Hidden by all the rest, was the news that super-lobbiest Abramoff is trying to make a deal for a reduced sentence on his many charges by testifying against his former business and political partners. Source: Albany Times Union * Intelligent Design Is Just Creationism Renamed, says Judge Jones "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom." Federal judge, John E Jones III Appointed by President George W. Bush In the Dover School Board case, Judge Jones revealed that in 150 instances in the book "Of Pandas and People" the term "intelligent design" had merely replaced terms such as "creation science" or "creation" or "creationism" and similar terms in a ploy to get around the recent major decisions against teaching creationism in public school science classes. Judge Jones said, Intelligent Design/Creationism "has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research." Source The Telegraph, UK PBS *DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, a wiretap requires a a court order." "Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so," he added. President George W. Bush April 20, 2004, Buffalo, NY "You see, what that meant is if you got a wiretap by court order, and by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example," President George W. Bush Hershey, Pennsylvania "A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. "In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order," he said. "What the Patriot Act said, is let's give our law enforcement the tools necessary, without abridging the Constitution of the United States, the tools necessary to defend America." President George W. Bush July 14, 2004 Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin Source: [all 12/20/05 and 12/21/05] Los Angeles Times "Cheney Defends Domestic Spying" Gulf Times, Qatar "For Years, Bush Said Court Orders Required For Spying Baltimore Sun "Cheney Supports Wiretap Authority" New York Newsday "Cheney Defends Domestic Spying" Arkansas Democrat-Gazette "Police-State Methods No Answer To Terror" *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK Oil-drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will become as much an albatross around Senator Ted Stevens neck as his infamous "bridge to nowhere." * Hesitating to even quote any of those mentioning impeachment. *STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK "Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam, both during the 1970s, served, I think, to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area." VP Dick Cheney, to reporters traveling on Air Force Two with him. Cheney added that "the vast majority" approve of the recently revealed surveillance without court orders. [Echoing Nixon's "Silent Majority."] "And so if there's a backlash pending, I think the backlash is going to be against those who are suggesting somehow we shouldn't take these steps in order to defend the country." Source: Los Angeles Times White House Press Pool * A bipartisan letter from five Senators stated for the record: "At no time, to our knowledge, did any administration representative ask the Congress to consider amending existing law to permit electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists without a warrant," [Two Republicans, Three Democrats] [Similar letters are being made available from other members of Congress, some still waiting for declassification, written in 2002 when some dozen members were advised of the situation. Some say the fact that they kept silent, as requested, was a form of tacit approval, a charge also levied at the New York Times, who broke the story a few days ago, after knowing about it for a year. Condensed from multiple sources, apologies that my note taking was going to fast to get everything.] * "Why is it that President Bush went in front of the American people and said that a wiretap 'requires a court order' after having approved a wiretap program without a court order two years earlier?" Howard Dean * "When the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was created in 1978, one of the things that the Attorney General at the time, Griffin Bell, testified before the intelligence committee, and he said that the current bill recognizes no inherent power of the President to conduct electronic surveillance." He said, 'This bill specifically states that the procedures in the bill are the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance may be conducted.' Sources: James Bamford Christian Science Monitor * "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance ... may be conducted." [FISA; 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2511(f)] Source: Bush's Use of NSA Spying and the Law Institute for Public Accuracy (press release), DC - Dec 19, 2005 * In addition, the FBI has been reported to be spying on various groups supporting animal rights and other such causes, as per FBI documents obtained under the Freedom Of Information Act. These include: A vegan community project [vegetarians] A Catholic workers group PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] However, the FBI officially denies that "Just being referenced in an FBI file is not tantamount to being the subject of an investigation," according to FBI spokesman John Miller. [However, you might notice that Mr. Miller did NOT deny that these people were under FBI investigation.] "The Justice Department does not comment on or confirm the existence of criminal investigations. All matters referred to the department by the intelligence agencies for purposes of further investigation are taken seriously and thoroughly reviewed." Brian Roehrkasse, Justice Dept. spokesman. "It goes back to the dark days of Nixon and the enemies list." Jeff Kerr, PETA General Counsel Source: FBI ACLU United Press International The Washington Post Also see: Joint Terrorism Task Forces *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK The WTA strike [transit strike] in New York City is costing the union $1 million per day in fines, and costing New York City $400-$660 million is lost business. Source: International Herald Tribune Bloomberg Voice of America * Google is trying to buy 5% of AOL. * Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries. "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South 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. * POEM OF THE WEEK This Room This room contains us all. The walls stretch out to encompass the angry me, the wicked me, the mother & child me, the melancholic me, the sanctified self of the loving me. Design dating back when all things were just beginning, and the beginning had already begun. We are stuck here. Pinned into place onto this board. Past days present. Present days all here. Future hopes drawn like tattoos on the stretching arms of the walls. One finds it great to have flexible views. Feelings live in separate compartments, drawn in through secret passageways of senses. Counting rains and rainbows, I found them all, handily located at the trysting place between heart and soul. Copyright 2005 by Simona Sumanaru and Michael S. Hart Please send comments to: simona_s75 AT yahoo.com & hart AT pobox.com *** *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists For more information about the Project Gutenberg's mailing lists, including the Project Gutenberg Weekly and Monthly Newsletters: and the other Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists: The weekly is sent on Wednesdays, and the monthly is sent on the first Wednesday of the month. 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