Weekly_September_07.txt The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, September 7, 2005 PT1 ******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******* 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 ***PROJECT GUTENBERG HAS AVERAGED 500 eBOOKS PER MONTH SINCE JULY 4, 1971*** HOT REQUESTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 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.] 41 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones* ***500 eBooks Averaged Per Month Since July 4, 1971*** 17,106 eBooks As Of Today!!! [Includes Australian eBooks] We Are 85% of the Way to 20,000!!! 13,978 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's 250+ eBooks per Month for ~56 Months We Have Produced 2150 eBooks in 2005!!! 2,804 to go to 20,000!!! We have now averaged ~500 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971 We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Are Averaging About 269 books Per Month This Year We Are Averaging About 61 eBooks Per Week This Year 43 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 ~1.75 years from Oct. 2003 to Aug. 2005 from 10,000 to 17,000 * ***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.] [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 *** ***Continuing Requests New Sites and Announcements * We have been invited to peruse the various eBook collections of the Internet Archive for potential Project Gutenberg eBooks. http://www.archive.org Don't worry, many of the numbers listed are out of date, but you should get all the files when you pass through to the original sites. Click on "texts" to get started, feel free to pick up any of the eBooks you would like to work on. Many Thanks To Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive! * Please visit and test our newest site: "PROJECT GUTENBERG EUROPE" http://pge.rastko.net [Project Gutenberg Europe] http://dp.rastko.net [Distributed Proofreaders Europe] * There is a new experimental online reader available. Start from any bibliographic record page, e.g. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300 Basically this paginates the .txt file and remembers your last position in a cookie so you can later resume reading where you left off. Please test it. It should work with any book that has a text file where the encoding is known. * MACHINE TRANSLATION We are seeking as much information as possible on the various approaches to Machine Translation. Any brand names or contact information would be greatly appreciated. *** Please use our new site for downloading DVD and CD images, etc. http://www.gutenberg.org/cdproject and The PG bittorrent tracker is up and running. Aaron Cannon has placed the CD and DVD there if anyone wants to test. You can access it by visiting http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu:6969 *** Please checkout the various Project Gutenberg FAQs, etc. at: http://www.gutenberg.org/about * We're building a team to read our eBooks into MP3 files for the visually impaired and other audio book users. Let us know if you'd like to join this group. More information at http://www.gutenberg.org/audio *** Project Gutenberg Needs DVD Burners So far we have sent out 15 million eBooks via snailmail!!! We currently have access to a dozen DVD burners. If you have a DVD burner and are interested in lending a hand, please email Aaron Cannon <cannona@fireantproductions.com> We can set you up with images, or snail you these DVDs for you to copy. You can either snail them directly to readers whose addresses we can send you, or you can do a stack of these and send the whole box back for reshipping. We can also reimburse you for supplies and postage if you wish. Please note that we can only use DVDs which are burnt in the dvd-r format, as we have had some compatibility issues with the dvd+r format. *** Project Gutenberg is seeking graphics we can use for our Web pages and publicity materials. If you have original graphics depicting Project Gutenberg themes, please contribute them! To see some of what we have now, please see: ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/images *** PROJECT GUTENBERG IS SEEKING LEGAL BEAGLES Project Gutenberg is seeking (volunteer) lawyers. We have regular need for intellectual property legal advice (both US and international) and other areas. Please email Project Gutenberg's CEO, Greg Newby <gbnewby AT pglaf.org> , if you can help. This is much more important than many of us realize! ***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders In the first 08.00 months of this year, we produced 2150 new eBooks. It took us from July 1971 to Apr 2000 to produce our first 2150 eBooks! That's 35 WEEKS as Compared to ~29 Years!!! 43 New eBooks This Week 59 New eBooks Last Week 264 New eBooks This Month [Aug] ~269 Average Per Month in 2005 336 Average Per Month in 2004 355 Average Per Month in 2003 203 Average Per Month in 2002 103 Average Per Month in 2001 2150 New eBooks in 2005 4049 New eBooks in 2004 4164 New eBooks in 2003 2441 New eBooks in 2002 1240 New eBooks in 2001 ==== 14044 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 56.00 Months! Over 250 books per month! 17,106 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 13,731 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,375 New eBooks In Last 12 Months 480 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia [This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ] * PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE: Since starting production in October 2000, Distributed Proofreaders has contributed 7,424 eBooks to Project Gutenberg. For more complete DP statistics, visit: http://www.pgdp.net/c/stats/stats_central.php * Check out our website at www.gutenberg.org, and see below to learn how you can get INSTANT access to our eBooks via FTP servers even before the new eBooks listed below appear in our catalog. eBooks are posted throughout the week. You can even get daily lists. Info on subscribing to daily, weekly, monthly Newsletters, listservs: http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/subscribe-howto or http://www.gutenberg.org/subs.shtml *** *Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report Please note the addition of the Internet Archive marked with <<< below. PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as: 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@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 Renaisscance 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 *** Please also note that over 23,000 eBooks are listed via The Online Books Page, of which over 5,300 are from PG. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar listing which is now in limbo. If anyone knows what is happening with the IPL, please let us know. Inquiries, made months ago, and again recently, have not turned up any current information. You can try a new IPL service at: http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum60.60.00/ 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 #231 of 2005 This Completes Week #33 and Month #07.75 [364 days this year] 133 Days/22 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 2,980 Books To Go To #20,000 [Our production year begins/ends 1st Wednesday of the month/year] 61 Weekly Average in 2005 78 Weekly Average in 2004 79 Weekly Average in 2003 47 Weekly Average in 2002 24 Weekly Average in 2001 43 Only 43 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list [Used to be well over 100] *** Permanent Requests For Assistance: DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS NEEDS CONTENT, PROOFERS AND SCANNER TYPES Please visit the site: http://www.pgdp.net for more information about how you can help a lot by simply proofreading just a few pages per day, or more. If you have a book that has been scanned, but not yet run through OCR (optical character recognition) or proofed, and you would like the Distributed Proofreaders to work on it, please email dphelp@pgdp.net and we will get things started. Also, DP is seeking public domain books not already in the Project Gutenberg collection. To see what is already online, visit http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/GUTINDEX.ALL (a text file) listing Project Gutenberg eBooks and is available for downloading. Do you have Public Domain books you would like to see in the archive? Can they be destructively scanned? If so send them to the Distributed Proofreading Team! Please email dphelp@pgdp.net with your geographic location. You will be given the address of the nearest high-speed scanner. [Note that the high-speed scanner requires destruction of the book(s) which will not be returned.] We have high-speed scanners currently located in the east, west and central portions of the US to make shipping easier. Please make sure that any books you send are _not_ already in the archive and please check them against David's "In Progress" list at: http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html to ensure no one is currently working on them. It would also be helpful if you obtain copyright clearance before mailing the books, and send the 'OK' lines to dphelp@pgdp.net Do you like to work on an entire book at once but don't have the time or technology to do the scanning, OCR, and initial proofing yourself? Distributed Proofreaders has the perfect solution! Just send us email telling us that you are interested in post-processing and we will help find a project you would like to work on. Please contact us at: dphelp@pgdp.net if you would like to know more about the Distributed Proofreaders. ***Donation Information We Have Included Quick and Easy Ways to Donate. . .As Per Your Requests! 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Note that updated eBooks usually go in their original directory (e.g., etext99, etext00, etc.) *** Statistical Review In the 35 weeks of this year, we have produced 2150 new eBooks. It took us from 7/71 to 02/00 to produce our FIRST 2150 eBooks!!! That's 35 WEEKS as Compared to ~29 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #2150 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 have been reposted] The Lifted Veil, by George Eliot 2165 May 2000 The Lumley Autograph Susan Fenimore Cooper[SFC#3][lumlyxxx.xxx] 2164 May 2000 The Bridge-Builders, by Mark Twain [MT#16][brdgbxxx.xxx] 2163 Apr 2000 Anarchism and Other Essays, by Emma Goldman [nrcsmxxx.xxx] 2162 Apr 2000 Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse, Thomas Burke [qunglxxx.xxx] 2161 Apr 2000 The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Tobias Smollett[txohcxxx.xxx] 2160 Apr 2000 A Little Tour In France, by Henry James[James #20][altifxxx.xxx] 2159 Apr 2000 The Prime Minister, by Anthony Trollope[Trollope5][prmnsxxx.xxx] 2158 Apr 2000 Female Suffrage, by Susan Fenimore Cooper [SFC #3][sffrgxxx.xxx] 2157 Apr 2000 China and the Manchus, by Herbert A. Giles [#3][?mnchxxx.xxx] 2156 Apr 2000 Phyllis of Philistia, by Frank Frankfort Moore [phophxxx.xxx] 2155 Apr 2000 Around the World in 80 Days Jr. Ed. by Jules Verne[80dayxxa.xxx] 2154 (Also see #103) Apr 2000 Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskell [Gaskell #4][mbrtnxxx.xxx] 2153 Apr 2000 On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales, Jack London 72-78[mklmtxxx.xxx] 2152 Apr 2000 The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V5[Raven Edition][10][poe5vxxx.xxx] 2151 Apr 2000 The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V4[Raven Edition][#9][poe4vxxx.xxx] 2150 . . . * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books Yet??? 1.1 Trillion eBooks Given Away If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of 6,465,062,717 that would be 17,106 x 64,650,627 = ~1.1 Trillion !!! Have We Given Away A Trillion Dollars Yet??? With 17,106 eBooks online as of September 07, 2005 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.90 from each book. 1% of the world population is 64,650,627 x 17,106 x $.90 = ~$1 Trillion] [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] With 17,106 eBooks online as of September 07, 2005 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.59 from each book. This "cost" is down from about $.73 when we had 13,611 eBooks a year ago. 100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population! At 17,108 eBooks in 34 Years and 02.00 Months We Averaged ~500 Per Year 41.7 Per Month 1.37 Per Day At 2150 eBooks Done In The 245 Days Of 2005 We Averaged 8.8 Per Day 61 Per Week 269 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. 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]. However, I just this moment heard a news item that made me wonder a bit more about the accuracy of the U.S. Census. A "Special Census" is taking place in Normal, Illinois, that is expected to count more people, by a factor of 3,000 or 3,400, depending on which source. 45,386 was the population as per the 2000 Census, so 3,000 added to this would be an increase of 6.6%, and 3,400 would be 7.5%, above a possibly automatic increase of 5% as per the same terms above but I presume this is in addition to previous adjustments. Of course, we should consider that we would have to double figures, perhaps to 15% from those above, if are considering the normal time between censuses of 10 years, these are for 5 years' growth. In previous news I heard about the U.S. Census, no mention was made about the annexation of various nearly locations as a cause of this normally unexpected growth, but it is mentioned at the site I found on the subject of the current Special Census. If annexation is the primary cause of such increases, country wide, then we should not be expecting a huge rise in the 2010 Census, but rather should expect something more along the norm. However, if it is not annexation, but more actual people on the average, then this might be an indicator that the population of the U.S. may have seen 300 million go by some time ago. For more details, see: www.normal.org/WhatsNew/Census.htm 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 5th was the first Wednesday of 2005, and thus ended PG's production year of 2004 and began the production year of 2005 at noon. This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week. *** *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] NO DECISION YET FROM JUDGE ON PATRIOT ACT CASE U.S. District Court Judge Janet C. Hall has postponed deciding whether a Connecticut library may publicly disclose its identity as the institution whose records have been sought by the FBI under the PATRIOT Act. The act forces any organization whose records have been subpoenaed to be silent about the investigation, but the library in question and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed a suit, alleging that such restrictions are unconstitutional. Hall heard arguments from both sides this week but declined to issue a ruling until she hears more from the FBI. Observers noted that Hall seemed dubious of the government's claim that identifying the library would threaten the investigation. She said the FBI must demonstrate that risk, which it so far has not done. Pointing out that controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act are under review by Congress, Hall suggested that allowing the public to see how the law is being applied could be an important factor in deciding whether the act will be extended. Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 September 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/09/2005090102t.htm MASSACHUSETTS PONDERS GOING OPEN SOURCE The state of Massachusetts is considering a proposal that would require all state documents to be compliant with the Open Document format rather than requiring proprietary software. The Open Document format is part of Open Office 2.0, a free software suite that is currently under development. Saying that the proposal is not "an anti-Microsoft initiative," Peter Quinn, chief information officer of the Commonwealth, pointed out that 200-year-old papers remain readable in their original format. He said he hopes that today's records will remain accessible far into the future, regardless of the comings and goings of various vendors and their products. Quinn said he hopes Microsoft will decide to support the format, which allows documents to be readable by any computer, similar to Adobe PDF. Microsoft's Alan Yates said the company would not agree to the Open Document format. He noted that Microsoft provides a free XML schema that allows users without Microsoft Office to read documents created by that suite of applications. Wall Street Journal, 1 September 2005 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112561152150829537,00.html PURDUE TURNS TO PODCASTS Purdue University has begun providing podcasts of lectures for certain courses. Purdue offers recordings for students who miss a class or who want to review specific lectures. Previously, recordings were available for about 100 courses but only on audio cassettes. Starting this fall, recordings for lectures from some courses are availble as MP3 files, allowing students to download the recordings rather than going to the library to check out tapes. Michael Gay, manager of broadcast networks and services, said faculty who agree to have their courses added to the podcast service need only submit an online request form and wear a microphone while they lecture. So far, almost 50 courses are part of the podcasting service, and Purdue officials hope that number rises next semester. Currently, podcasts are available publicly, though in the future they may be restricted to campus users. Users of the service can download a specific lecture or all of the lectures from an entire course. As for the notion that some students might decide simply never to attend lectures in favor of listening to the downloads, Gay commented that "most instructors agree that any student who thinks an audio recording is a surrogate for class is doomed to failure." Critics said podcasting programs favor students who can afford portable music players, but Gay noted that the podcasts are in a format that can be played on any computer. Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 August 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/08/2005083101t.htm GOOGLE PRESSES FORWARD SCANNING BOOKS Google is moving ahead with its plans to digitize vast numbers of books and make them available online. The search engine this week expanded its book search service to 14 countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia, where users can now search English-language books. Although laws in each country dictate small differences in how the service works, according to Jim Gerber, director of content partnerships, in all countries the service offers three types of results: for books in the public domain, the entire text is available online; copyrighted works whose publishers have signed agreements with Google are available to the extent that those agreements allow; for copyrighted books whose publishers have not made agreements with Google, only selected portions will be available online. This last group of results has raised the ire of publishers, who argue that Google has no right to display any part of copyrighted works without permission. Google has offered publishers the opportunity to identify specific titles that will be excluded from the service, but most publishing groups have said that approach is inherently backwards, giving Google blanket authority until and unless publishers complain. Internet News, 31 August 2005 http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3531221 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 Where Is The Offical Aid For Katrina's Victims??? Most of the efforts we are seeing seem to be private, with little or no presence by the national guards, or the military services, Coast Guard, FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency]. etc. With years of general warnings, and days of specifics for this particular event, the questions being raised are simple: why aren't the official agencies there? Some say it's a paperwork SNAFU, totally FUBARed. Others simply point to the fact the Republicans, such as they are, take care of their own, and this results from a long standing tradition of Republican snubbing of Democrats, who are in office there. Many are asking if the results would be the same, for Florida, where the president's brother's governor, if Katrina had struck there instead. Sean Penn and others have organized their own various personal efforts and have been rescuing people on the verge of drowning, suffering from malnutrition, and a host of other life-threatening situations, and theirs is an effort that seems to be more alone than anyone, at least a week ago, would have expected. After 9 hours in a private boat making the rounds for various rescues and giving aid, Mr. Penn reported the official presence in the entire 9 hours numbered only three other boats containing official recscue people. Similar stories from other celebrities making efforts on their own, but downplayed even further, perhaps at their own requests. *STRANGE WORDS OF THE WEEK In a telethon to help victims of hurricane Katrina, Kanye West pointed out what was on many minds, that "the the setup, the way America's set up to help the the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slowly as possible. . .and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us." DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK George Tenet received the highest US civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, for his role as CIA chief; for others involved in the same efforts concerning 9/11, the weapons of mass destruction fiasco, etc., the ax is still falling, and heads are still rolling. In the same ceremony, President Bush also honored in a similar manner Four Star General Tommy Franks, for his unparalled success in our Afghansistan policies, and L. Paul Bremer for his even greater contribution to carrying our our policies in Irag, as the interim ruler of the country; credit will also obviously get given to others for these as the ax continues work. *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK Continuing with last week's prediction: China will continue bidding for, and buying, more and more of the world's infrastructure, to the sad detriment of U.S. Congress' inability to veto purchases in other countries. This has obviously been continuing this week, and likely will become an ongoing event for the next decade or two: the real question is will the media give the full story? No mention of China's effect on US energy prices at all, they are blaming it all on Katrina, and each other. *QUOTE OF THE WEEK "If Katrina had hit a big Florida city, such as Miami, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Orlando, or, heaven forbid, the Disney complex or Cape Canaveral, do you think brother W would have taken so long to help his brother Jeb?" [For those who may have forgotten, Jeb Bush, the First Brother, is Governor of Florida, and may have been the lynchpin of the Republicans' efforts to carry the last two presidential elections.] *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK 10 years ago there were 2 million cars in China. Since then they have averaged nearly that many new cars per year, for a current total of over 20 million. If they grow to 10 times more again in the next 10 years, China will have about the same number of cars as the United States. Then where will the price of gas have risen to? * 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 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 Parade 1 daylight dreams dancing flashes playing loudly with restless chains of hour glass around their necks apparitions failing to haunt their fear handed over to night chaos glaring whispers interrupted sleep then darkness claws around an eerie death sheer madness lightning brilliance the giants of color laugh delicious laughter soft love locked in the fight of two drops of dew silky drapes unveil tall windows the band of rainbow giants appears awake 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. 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