pt1a2.406 Weekly_April_19.txt **The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, April 19, 2006 PT1** *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******** Please note some previous miscounts still not corrected, but the grand totals should be fairly accurate, just have to go back and fix the interim counts. * Editor's comments appear in [brackets]. Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart@pobox.com or gbnewby@pglaf.org Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email hart@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: *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 8 New This Week From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 2 New This Week From PGEu [European Copyrights, Life + 50 and 70] 0 New This Week From PG PrePrints 45 New This Week To Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright 55 New This Week [Including PG Australia, PG Europe and PrePrints] [I'm sure there are a few bugs in the new accounting] *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones* Over 1,000 New eBooks This Year!!! 19,152 eBooks As Of Today!!! 848 to go to 20,000!!! 18,721 at www.gutenberg.org[+xx] 564 Australian eBooks [+8] [Included in above line] 290 Gutenberg Europe [+2] 141 PG PrePrint Site [+0] 19,152 Grand Total of all four sites 55 New eBooks This Week ~96% of the Way to 20,000 ***550 eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971*** 19,090 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's ~258 eBooks per Month for ~62.50 Months We Have Produced 1,010 eBooks in 2006 848 to go to 20,000!!! 40 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders 8,316 total from Distributed Proofreaders Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B] [Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers] We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005 [Including PG Australia] We Are Averaging ~294 eBooks Per Month This Year [Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints] All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 68 eBooks Per Week In 2006 55 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2003 to 2006 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~2.5 years from Oct. 2003 to Mar. 2006 from 10,000 to 19,000 [The above changes due to the opening of Project Gutenberg sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org] [Now including totals from Australia, Europe and PrePrints] [Apologies, it will take a while to integrate everything not all statistics may be totally equalized yet] [PGEu Statistics Are Counted Monthly Not Weekly] [Daily PGEu stats at http://dp.rastko.net/default.php] [Daily DP stats at http://www.pgdp.net] BTW, we just started a new "PrePrints" site at PG, so if you come across eBooks that aren't ready for primetime, but that should be saved for upgrading, we have a place to put them. http://preprints.readingroo.ms/ new site * ~75,000 eBooks at the PG Consortia Center http://www.gutenberg.cc * ***Introduction [The Newsletter is now being sent in two sections, so you can directly go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments, News, Notes & Queries, and 2. Weekly eBook Update Listing. Note bene that PT1 is now being sent as PT1A and PT1B. [Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us: hart@pobox.com and gbnewby@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] 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 Another One Bites The Dust Illinois Governor Ryan Guilty On All 22 Counts Taking payoffs, the truckers' drivers license scandal, accepting illegal gifts, vacations, bribes, etc. from others in return for giving state contracts, leases, etc. Ryan claims he was unaware of such corruption even though it appears he and his family received cash and gifts from $100,000 to $200,000, and the Ryan was responsible for an estimated $300,000+ to prominent lobbyist Donald Udstuen. Ryan was about the 66th person indicted from the various investigations of these matters, the vast majority of them, including his campaign committee were convicted long ago. "The charged conduct by former Gov. Ryan reflects a disturbing violation of trust," said U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald public statement upon the indictments. "Ryan is charged with betraying the citizens of Illinois for over a decade on state business, both large and small." * We won't even go into the non-reporting of VP Cheney's reception when he threw out the first pitch at the opening the baseball season. *DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK Revolt of the Generals How Many Stars, How Many Generals? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended himself this week against a group of command generals by saying that these are only half a dozen of thousands and thousands of generals. The truth is that there are NOT thousands of such generals-- command generals in charge of major operations in Iraq. There have only been a dozen such generals in the three years of the Irag War, and over half of them are on this list. Even counting all generals in command of 1,000 troops or more all over this world, there is only room for barely 1,000 such generals in a miltary with 1,000,000 combat troops. These are what are known as "command officers," and not those who "fly a desk." In addition, all of these generals have in excess of one star, namely two, three, or four stars, if your count includes the Congressional testimony of Gen. Shinseki-- the first of the generals to speak out in a public forum that the Iraq War was undermanned and underplanned and the highest ranking officer in the entire United States Army. These are command generals, all with more than one star, more experience, more stars than the average general out there. The rest are all desk officers, without the experience to see what is really happening at the troop level, consequently the actions and reactions you see here between real commanders on the battlefield and those who only know how to fly a desk. 1 Star = Brigadier General Zero on this list, common in the military 2 Stars = Major General Three on this list, not nearly as common 3 Stars = Lieutenant General Two on this list, not very common at all 4 Stars = General Two on this list, the least common of all Here is the list, by rank: Gen. Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, Army, highest possible rank. Gen. Anthony Zinni, also diplomatic corps "roving ambassador" Marines Central Command Chief of Staff, Middle East, "Winning the Peace" author. The top general in charge of the Iraq War. Lt. Gen. John Riggs, Distinguished Flying Cross, Viet Nam, Military Assistant to Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, Commanding General, 7th Infantry Division, most recently Commanding General of the First U.S. Army, lost a star when he retired in protest, reasons not on record, made through questionable charges AFTER he criticized the war. Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, Director for Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff "The consequence of the military's quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war." Maj. Gen. John Batiste, Commander, 1st Infantry Division ["Big Red 1"] Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, "Father of the Iraqi Army" Commanding General, Office of Security Transition, West Point graduate Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, Commander, 82nd Airborne Division There are NOT thousands of generals with multiple stars and field command experience at such high levels in the entire US Army, much less directly in command of Iraq, perhaps a dozen, at the most. "On June 22, 1999, Four Star General Eric Shinseki was appointed by President Clinton To be the 34th Chief of Staff, United States Army." He was the one who first told Congress of the mismanagement, and he was forced to resign by Rumsfeld, who did not attend the retirement, not that there was much of a retirement to attend. *STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK * 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. 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. * *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. To subscribe to any (or to unsubscribe or adjust your subscription preferences), visit the Project Gutenberg mailing list server: http://lists.pglaf.org If you are having trouble with your subscription, please email the list's human administrators at: help@pglaf.org Strange News in Globalization http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/technology/11fast.html?hp&ex=1144814400&en =ad12af5ee011af1e&ei=5094&partner=homepage The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order By MATT RICHTEL SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Like many American teenagers, Julissa Vargas, 17, has a minimum-wage job in the fast-food industry - but hers has an unusual geographic reach. ... What made the $12.08 transaction remarkable was that the customer was not just outside Ms. Vargas's workplace here on California's central coast. She was at a McDonald's in Honolulu. And within a two-minute span Ms. Vargas had also taken orders from drive-through windows in Gulfport, Miss., and Gillette, Wyo. A man who wants a Big N' Tasty in Wyoming and a woman who wants an Egg McMuffin in Honolulu may be placing their orders with the same teenager in California. Several customers, told of the fact, seemed taken aback. And yet where is the surprise? There you sit, perhaps miles from home, idling in a car that was manufactured almost anywhere, burning gasoline refined from a substance pumped out of the ground who knows where and shipped, in all likelihood, across the ocean to be trucked to the station where you last filled up. Meanwhile you're talking to your best friend on your cellphone - and who knows how that works or where those signals go? - or listening to satellite radio beamed down from space. Yet what's really on your mind is the food they're getting together for you inside that McDonald's, made from cattle that once lived anywhere and potatoes that grew someplace else, all of it relayed from some way station in the McDonald's supply chain. Yes, a long-distance call center for a drive-through window is something to marvel at. The real wonder is that the call center isn't in Bangalore. The Magazine Reader Wild Generalization X In Details, a Hilarious Screed on Turning 40 and Not Loving It By Peter Carlson Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 11, 2006; Page C02 The folks known as Generation X are on the verge of turning 40, and apparently they're getting cranky about it. The thirty-something generation is irked, irritated and downright peeved, writes Gen Xer Jeff Gordinier in "Has Generation X Already Peaked?," a bitterly hilarious screed in the April issue of Details, a magazine for young men. They're irked at their elders, the obnoxiously self-mythologizing Baby Boomers. They're irritated at the younger generation whom they consider airheads -- Generation Y or the "millennials," who came of age around 2000. And they're peeved that the media have failed to get sufficiently excited that Generation X is turning 40. "While the boomers and the millennials have been out gulping up all of that mass-media oxygen, somebody seems to have forgotten to put together the Newsweek cover story about Generation X on the brink of turning 40," Gordinier grumbles. "Could it be that the age group that popularized the phrase jumped the shark has done just that? . . . Is Generation X already obsolete?" Gordinier doesn't actually answer those questions, which are absurd and unanswerable anyway, but he does have a good time ranting and venting in delightfully comic fashion. Here's what he says about the recent glut of media hype about Baby Boomers turning 60: "You see this stuff everywhere, and you just know what's coming. David Crosby's face transplant. The James Taylor-Carly Simon remake of On Golden Pond . Woodstock IV: Return to the Garden, cosponsored by Nike, Botox and Ben & Jerry's. The Brown Acid line of tie-dyed Depends. It's only a matter of time. Those insufferable boomers are tucking into another gluttonous, cheek-smeared smorgasbord of self-importance. Don't even try to escape." And here's what he says about the twenty-somethings of Gen Y: "The boomers bred and their solipsistic progeny have arrived . . . They just love stuff. They love celebrities. They love technology. They love brand names. . . . They're happy to do whatever advertising tells them to do. So what if they can't manage to read anything longer than an instant message?" Gordinier tries to defend Gen X, but without much enthusiasm. "Generation X is still defined more by lasts than firsts. We're the last generation to produce and hold on to albums on vinyl, the last generation to read newspapers . . . the last generation to express any sort of resistance to corporate servitude, the last generation to produce old-fashioned movie stars (Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt) as opposed to manufactured aristocretins and reality-TV clowns." Aristocretins! I love that. Finally, the perfect word for Paris Hilton. Like all good rants, this one builds up a nice head of steam. It's big fun. But of course it's all baloney. The media's insatiable need to pigeonhole disparate humans into a "generation" with a single unifying personality is almost as idiotic as stereotyping people by the hue of their epidermis. I refuse to get involved in this silliness. I'm a Baby Boomer but I love my little brothers and sisters of Gen X and Gen Y. And in the spirit of that love, I offer this sage advice to my young friends: Work hard, kids. My generation has run up a huge deficit and you guys are gonna have to pay it off. And remember to pay your Social Security taxes. I'm looking forward to a long, happy retirement, and I'll need plenty of Brown Acid Depends. *** Cargo, Unloaded _________________________________________________________________ For a week, people have been dropping by the palatial offices of The Magazine Reader to congratulate us for killing Cargo magazine. We'd love to take credit, but the death of Cargo is really a triumph for all the men of America -- except for the 373,727 wimps and weenies who actually subscribed to Cargo. For those of you blissfully unaware of Cargo, it was a shopping magazine for men, a mag filled with caption-sized "articles" about stuff you can buy -- stuff ranging from shoes to cars to men's makeup and, believe it or not, men's bikini waxes. Cargo was created in March 2004 by the Conde Nast magazine empire and was killed a couple of weeks ago, put out of its misery like a lame horse. Last week, the New York Times interviewed Ariel Foxman, Cargo's erstwhile editor, who whined that the media had said nasty things about his magazine. One of those nasty things -- "the most hurtful," the Times reported -- was printed in The Magazine Reader when Cargo debuted. Hurtful? What, pray tell, could he be talking about? Maybe it was our observation that Cargo "might be the worst idea for a magazine in human history." Or maybe it was our call for men to boycott Cargo in order to "strike a blow against foppery, frippery, metrosexuality, the commercialization of everything and the wimpification of America." Gee, we didn't want to hurt the feelings of Cargo editors, who are obviously very sensitive souls. But we're thrilled that American men showed their innate good sense by avoiding Cargo. Frankly, we're amazed that the magazine managed to find 373,727 guys dunderheaded enough to subscribe. Heeding our own call to boycott Cargo, we hadn't seen an issue since that wretched debut. But when we heard about the magazine's death, we bought the May issue, just to see if it was still pathetic. It was. It contains a tiny story about various kinds of goop you can rub on your skin so you'll look tan. And a piece touting a men's fragrance that's designed to smell like marijuana and "male sweat." And a blurb about chairs that look like they're held together with duct tape, except that the duct tape is really leather and the chairs, which cost $4,800 each, are part of a designer furniture line called "Ersatz Heirlooms." Come on, guys. If you want to look tan, go outside and lie in the sun. And if you want to sit on duct-taped chairs, smelling like weed and sweat, do you really need a men's shopping mag? Goodbye, Cargo. We can't say we'll miss you, but we'll remember you fondly next time we're duct-taping the furniture. ** Subject: FOR IP: Oklahoma bill to open your computer to companies... (Note - this is an Oklahoma House bill, not a US Congress. Doesn't make it any more right...) http://www.okgazette.com/news/templates/cover.asp?articleid=423&zoneid=7 Get ready for Microsoft, cable and phone companies, and quite a few other people to know a lot more about what you do on your computer, thanks to House Bill 2083. Wednesday, April 05, 2006 Ben Fenwick It's supposed to protect you from predators spying on your computer habits, but a bill Microsoft Corp. helped write for Oklahoma will open your personal information to warrantless searches, according to a computer privacy expert and a state representative. Called the "Computer Spyware Protection Act", House Bill 2083 would create fines of up to a million dollars for anyone using viruses or surreptitious computer techniques to break on to someone's computer without that person's knowledge and acceptance, according to the bill's state Senate author, Clark Jolley. "The bill has a clear prohibition on anything going in without your permission. You have to grant permission", said Jolley, R-Edmond. "You can look at your license agreement. It will say whether they have the ability to take that information or not". But therein lies the catch. If you click that "accept" button on the routine user's agreement, the proposed law would allow any company from whom you bought upgradable software the freedom to come onto your computer for "detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software, including scanning for and removing computer software prescribed under this act". That means that Microsoft (or another company with such software) can erase spyware or viruses. But if you have, say, a pirated copy of Excel - Microsoft (or companies with similar software) can erase it, or anything else they want to erase, and not be held liable for it. Additionally, that phrase "fraudulent or other illegal activities" means they can: - Let the local district attorney know that you wrote a hot check last month. - Let the attorney general know that you play online poker. - Let the tax commission know you bought cartons of cigarettes and didn't pay the state tax on them. - Read anything on your hard drive, such as your name, home address, personal identification code, passwords, Social Security number ... etc., etc., etc. "I think in broad terms that is still a form of spying", said Marc Rotenberg, attorney and executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. "Some people say, 'Well, it's justified'. I'm not so clear that should be the case. Particularly if the reason you are passing legislation is to cover that activity". The bill is scheduled to go back before the House."