Weekly_October_12.txt, PT1a *The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, October 12, 2005 PT1* ******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******** 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 * HOT REQUESTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS STATISTICAL CHANGES Due to various changes in our statistical reporting and coverage, the accuracy of the weekly count of the number of eBooks will not be as redundantly checked by a human count, and we will rely more on the automated system. ***If you notice any inconsistencies, please send email to: hart AT pglaf DOT org * New Site!!! New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm which now indexes 24,000 books available free online, including all PG(US) & PG(Aus)'s books, along with some basic date information about them and their authors where you can find more. For information please contact Philip Harper <webmaster AT kingkong.demon.co.uk> * WANTED!

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!!!People to help us collect ALL public domain eBooks!!! <<<

* 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 53 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 Year Since July 4, 1971*** 17,301 eBooks As Of Today!!! [Includes Australian eBooks] We Are ~87% of the Way to 20,000!!! 14,239 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's 250+ eBooks per Month for ~56 Months We Have Produced 2345 eBooks in 2005!!! 2,699 to go to 20,000!!! 7,534 from Distributed Proofreaders Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B] 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; all Project Gutenberg sites have a higher grand total.] This Site Is Averaging About 59 eBooks Per Week This Year 53 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 Oct. 2005 from 10,000 to 17,300 * ***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 ***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 an 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 09.25 months of this year, we produced 2345 new eBooks. It took us from July 1971 to Oct 2000 to produce our first 2345 eBooks! That's 40 WEEKS as Compared to ~29.33 Years!!! 53 New eBooks This Week 37 New eBooks Last Week [-2] 53 New eBooks This Month [Oct] ~254 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 2345 New eBooks in 2005 4049 New eBooks in 2004 4164 New eBooks in 2003 2441 New eBooks in 2002 1240 New eBooks in 2001 ==== 14239 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 57.25 Months! Over 250 books per month! 17,301 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 14,076 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,225 New eBooks In Last 12 Months 489 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 7,534 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 #280 of 2005 This Completes Week #40 and Month #08.25 [364 days this year] 91 Days/14 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 2,699 Books To Go To #20,000 [Our production year begins/ends 1st Wednesday of the month/year] 59 Weekly Average in 2005 78 Weekly Average in 2004 79 Weekly Average in 2003 47 Weekly Average in 2002 24 Weekly Average in 2001 41 Only 41 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 40 weeks of this year, we have produced 2345 new eBooks. It took us from 7/71 to 10/00 to produce our FIRST 2345 eBooks!!! That's 40 WEEKS as Compared to ~29.33 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #2294 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] Oct 2000 The After House, by Mary Roberts Rinehart[MRR #14][ftrhsxxx.xxx] 2358 Oct 2000 Great Jehoshaphat & Gully Dirt, Jewell Ellen Smith[gjagdxxh.xxx] 2357C Oct 2000 Tommy and Co., by Jerome K. Jerome [Jerome #22][tomcoxxx.xxx] 2356 Oct 2000 The Formation of Vegetable Mould, by Darwin [CD#9][vgmldxxx.xxx] 2355 Oct 2000 On the Brain, by T. H. Huxley [THH#3] [Darwin #8][huxbrxxx.xxx] 2354 Oct 2000 Tea-table Talk, by Jerome K. Jerome [Jerome #21][ttalkxxx.xxx] 2353 Oct 2000 Eurasia, by Chris. Evans [uasiaxxx.xxx] 2352 Oct 2000 John Halifax, Gentleman, by Mrs. Craik:Dinah Maria[halifxxx.xxx] 2351 Oct 2000 His Last Bow, by Arthur Conan Doyle[A.C.Doyle #23][lstbwxxx.xxx] 2350 Oct 2000 The Adv. of The Devil's Foot, A. Conan Doyle [#22][dvlftxxx.xxx] 2349 Oct 2000 The Disappearance Of Lady Frances Carfax [ACD #21][lcrfxxxx.xxx] 2348 Oct 2000 The Adv. Of The Dying Detective, A Conan Doyle #20[dydetxxx.xxx] 2347 Oct 2000 The Adv. Of The Bruce-Partington Plans [Doyle #19][bplanxxx.xxx] 2346 Oct 2000 The Adv. Of The Red Circle A. Conan Doyle [#18][rcrclxxx.xxx] 2345 Oct 2000 The Adv. Of The Cardboard Box, by Conan Doyle #17[crdbdxxx.xxx] 2344 Oct 2000 The Adv. Of Wisteria Lodge, A. Conan Doyle [#16][wstraxxx.xxx] 2343 Sep 2000 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre 8, by Goethe[Goethe 20][?wml8xxx.xxx] 2342 [Language: German]. . . Sep 2000 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre 1, by Goethe[Goethe 13][?wml1xxx.xxx] 2335 Sep 2000 The Works of Rudyard Kipling/One Volume Edition/12[1vkipxxx.xxx] 2334 * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet??? 1.1 Trillion eBooks Given Away If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of 6,472,200,341 that would be 17,301 x 64,722,003 = ~1.12 Trillion !!! With 17,301 eBooks online as of October 12, 2005 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.89 from each book. [1% world population x #eBooks] 64,722,003 x 17,301 x $.89 = ~$1 Trillion [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population, or 100,000,000 readers. With 17,301 eBooks online as of October 12, 2005 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.58 from each book. This "cost" is down from about $.71 when we had 14,076 eBooks a year ago. 100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population! At 17,301 eBooks in 34 Years and 03.25 Months We Averaged ~505 Per Year 42.0 Per Month 1.38 Per Day At 2345 eBooks Done In The 280 Days Of 2005 We Averaged 8.4 Per Day 59 Per Week 254 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. ***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B*** *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] YAHOO ANNOUNCES PODCAST DIRECTORY Yahoo will launch a new service to search podcasts, making it the first of the major search services to delve into that type of audio content. Yahoo estimates that five million people listen to podcasts, and sales of Apple's iPod--the leading MP3 player--total more than 20 million. Smaller services such as Odeo.com and Podcast.net offer services geared toward podcasts. With the Yahoo tools, users can search the Web for podcasts, looking for those in particular topic areas, and can rate the podcasts they listen to. Yahoo's service does not include tools to create podcasts, though officials with the company said one day it might. Many analysts see audio and video searching as the future for most search engines, and Yahoo's venture into podcast searches will likely prompt companies including Google to offer similar services. MSNBC, 9 October 2005 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9645653/ AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER PULL BOOKS FROM GOOGLE Google's controversial program to scan millions of books has run afoul of a very prolific author and his publisher. Jacob Neusner, a research professor of theology at Bard College, has written more than 900 books. Calling Google's book-scanning project a violation of copyright, Neusner requested that his books not be included in the database. Google's response was that Neusner must submit a separate form for each book he wanted excepted from the project. Siding with Neusner, the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, which has published many of Neusner's titles, then told Google it wanted all of its titles excluded from the project as well. Calling the scanning project "unfair and arrogant," Jed Lyons, president of Rowman & Littlefield, said, "[W]e don't want to do business with an organization that thumbs its nose at publishers and authors." Lyons said representatives from Google are trying to persuade the publisher to change its decision. Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 October 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/10/2005100701t.htm DELAWARE COURT SHIELDS IDENTITY OF BLOGGER The Delaware Supreme Court has rejected an effort to identify an anonymous blogger accused of defamatory remarks online. Patrick Cahill, a councilman in the city of Smyrna, had sought the blogger's identity from Comcast following several unflattering postings on the person's blog. Although a lower court judge had denied the blogger's request for protection, the Supreme Court said that court had applied the wrong standard. In the absence of substantial evidence of defamation, Cahill's petition to identify the blogger will be denied, according to the high court. In the ruling, the court said it found for the blogger to protect against what it called "the chilling effect on anonymous First Amendment Internet speech that can arise when plaintiffs bring trivial defamation lawsuits primarily to harass or unmask their critics." An attorney for the blogger said that statements on electronic bulletin boards and blogs are not generally considered factual but are seen as individuals' opinions. The court's judgment, however, did not identify the medium as pertinent in its application of legal standard. New York Times, 6 October 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/technology/06blog.html MORE HINTS POINT TO IDENTITY OF CONNECTICUT LIBRARY The American Library Association (ALA) has filed a court brief in the ongoing wrangling over a provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that prevents organizations under investigation from publicly speaking about the investigation. Under the terms of that law, federal authorities had sought information from a Connecticut library group, which has been forced to keep its identity secret. An article in the New York Times, though, said the Library Connection Inc., of Windsor, Conn., is the probable target of the investigation. According to the ALA's brief, because the Library Connection has refused to confirm or deny the story in the Times, it is clear that the speculation is correct. Further, because the identity has been guessed, keeping the group from speaking about the investigation is pointless, according to the brief. The brief states: "If the reporting is accurate, the information the government seeks to suppress has already been revealed, and the gag order serves no interest but that of silencing a citizen." Last month a judge ordered that the gag order be lifted, but an appeals court has reimposed the gag order pending its review of the case. Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 October 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/10/2005100601t.htm FTC SUES FOR ALLEGED SPYWARE The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued Odysseus Marketing, accusing the company of engaging in distributing spyware. Odysseus distributed an application called Kazanon, which supposedly allowed users to trade files anonymously, without fear of being identified by record companies. According to the FTC, users who downloaded the application also got a range of adware programs that fed advertisements to those users' computers and added items to the search results pages of popular search engines, including Google and Yahoo. The added items, which were indistinguishable from those supplied by the search engine, directed users to companies that paid Odysseus for the placement. Further, the software did not offer users a simple option to uninstall it. Walter Rines, owner of Odysseus, disputed all of the FTC's claims. He noted that the user agreement informs consumers of what will be installed when they download the Kazanon program. He also said an uninstall tool is available and that his company's software did not remove any search results but merely added to the list. Rines also said the lawsuit was "moot" because his company stopped distributing adware several weeks ago. MSNBC, 5 October 2005 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9598897/ GOOGLE AND SUN ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP Google and Sun Microsystems have announced a partnership that many see as a joining of forces against Microsoft. Sun has long been a direct competitor with Microsoft, and most analysts believe Google has aspirations to compete with the software giant. Few specifics were released about the new arrangement. Google, which already buys Sun hardware, will expand those purchases, and Sun customers who download Java will have the option of also downloading Google's toolbar. Beyond those changes, most speculation about the deal concerns Sun's OpenOffice, an open source application that competes with Microsoft's Office suite of software. The companies said they will jointly develop OpenOffice, though some analysts expect Google to take primary responsibility for the work. John Rymer, an analyst with Forrester Research, said he believes Google will not simply redistribute OpenOffice. "When [Google does] something," he said, "it has to be cool. It has to go further than Microsoft Office." The deal is also a reunion of sorts for Sun CEO Scott McNealy and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who worked together at Sun for 14 years. San Jose Mercury News, 5 October 2005 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12823481.htm 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 *** New from other sources: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB112793789066654830-Vjbpkz_NLQ83hrpULt Cy0XXHgbA_20061010.html?mod=blogs "You'll find a reasonable argument that Google Print is a Good Thing, including a link to Jonathon Band's analysis of it, which argues that it's `fair use'." (Band is a Georgetown U. law professor and gun for hire on IP issues.) * [Not many details available yet, but this week Microsoft apparently managed to both get out from under all the pending anti-trust case load that has been plaguing them for years and years, and also has taken over an even larger portion of the virtual world via mergers or cooperative efforts with Yahoo, RealNetworks, and others. Microsoft will team with Yahoo in yet another attempt to take over the world of instant messaging, while their deal with RealNetworks brings them into direct competition with iTunes and other services bring music over the Internet, and also takes another step towards worldwide domination of the video game market. ;=) ] [Seattle Times, ZDNet, Reuters, etc.] *HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA [As requested adding sources, etc., when possible.] More and more schools, colleges, and universities are either handing out free laptop computers to students, or are requiring them to buy their own. Indians State University, not very far south and east where I live, is reportedly going to hand out free computers to all students with a "B" average or over in the coming year, and then require all students to have one the following year, 2007. WILL-AM Radio, ~12:00 Noon, 10/10 [A word of caution when dealing with grade averages: when grades were first invented, these were designed such that a "C" was the average grade on the scale: A = Excellent/Superior B = Above Average/Good C = Average/Fair D = Below Average/Poor E = Fail However, during the years since the peak school year of the class of 1965, we have seen "grade inflation" taking place, in which artificially high grades were given to make us think that students were doing well when their performance was actually declining. Not only today, but even over 30 years ago, averages were being fudged so that the average grade was over a "B". . .even as famously censored reports stated a wide use of grade inflation was upon us. The Hoover Report from the University of Illinois still had one of the most limited exposures the last time I looked in the library for it, still not in circulation even after over 30 years and having been created at great expense and labor by serious researchers. The same process has been called into question about the various nationwide tests, such as the SAT & ACT, which have recently been renormed when averages fell below 90% of their original levels.] *DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK "The Plum Book" as it is known to Washington insider circles, is the list of thousands of goverment jobs given from the new administrations to their friends, campaign staff. Example: The daughter of of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the wife of Michael Chertoff, "The Vulture," Secretary of Homeland Security, somehow kept her job at FEMA when everyone was being sent to DHS. [The Nation, etc.] *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK China's much publicized efforts to slow growth so that the gap between the rich and the poor will not continue to widen will have little effect on the gap between the rich and the poor, but may cause general economic haze. *STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK "If you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - you could abort every black baby in this country, and our crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down." William Bennett, former Secretary of Education [Washington Post, San Jose Mercury News, etc. * "They're all bloody civil servants moonlighting as journalists. "It's their job to protect the status quo." Sylvia Plath *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK The Atlantic Monthly: a child growing up in a family earning over $90,000 has a 1 in 2 chance of getting a college degree by age 24; a child in a family earning $35,000 to $61,000 has a 1 in 10 chance; a child in a family earning under $35,000 has a 1 in 17 chance. * When real estate brokers sell their own houses, they take 10% more time to sell than when they sell your houses and get 3% - 4% more. [ABC 20/20, 10/9] * The low visibility wedding industry takes in about $72 Billion per year. The high visibility video game industry takes in only about $7 Billion. * FEMA paid Carnival Cruise lines hundreds of millions of dollars to put hurricane refugees up, the price based on what Carnival would have had as a result of these being normal bookings over a total of six months. The three ships involved seem to have been filled about half way. Even if the ships were filled to capacity, the price would be $1,275 a person for this service, but at half full, the price would be $2,550-- while you can book full service Carnival Cruises for $599, as per Sen. Tom Coburn's office. Senator Coburn is an Oklahoma Republican. [Carnival says it is not making any more than they would have otherwise but I wonder if they are counting all the extra money passengers spend] "When the federal government would actually save millions of dollars by forgoing the status quo and actually sending evacuees on a luxurious six-month cruise it is time to rethink how we are conducting oversight. A short-term temporary solution has turned into a long-term, grossly overpriced sweetheart deal for a cruise line," according to Senators Coburn and Barack Obama in a joint statement. They called for a CFO [Chief Financial Officer] to be appointed in charge of all current hurricane relief. [The Washington Post, 9/28] * Cornbelt News Farmers are spending ~$11.50 per acre this year just on harvest fuel. [University of Illinois Extension on WILL-AM Radio, 10/7] [If they are getting 115 bushels of corn per acre, a very low amount, then it is costing them an additional $.10 per bushel. Soybeans were more like 40 bushels per acre, which would be nearly $.30 a bushel in total fuel prices, probably about double what it was last year. At 50+ pounds of corn per bushel, this would increase the price of one pound of corn by at most 1/20 of a cent at the elevator. Presuming an operation raises the prices of corn 10 times over, that 1/20 of a cent would become a 1/2 cent increase by the time it reaches your table; if they increased prices by 20 times, your cost would go up a penny. Think about this when you see the price of corn go up $.10 - $.25 By the way, at a very low 11,500 ears per acre, fuel prices per ear of corn would go up 1/10 of a cent; consider this when you go to farmers' markets next time around, and let us know.] * Nicole, a great white shark that has been under observation, swam from Africa to Australia and back, totalling over 12,000 miles, and for the first time proving a link between the two shark populations. * 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 Day Seven On the seventh day, let your soul light up your eyes like two candles in the Easter night, like a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean where feelings swim, and hope floats. 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