GWeekly_September_29.txt The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, September 29, 2004 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 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, including Distributed Proofreaders *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 43 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones We Are Over 92% of the Way to 15,000!!! 13,891 eBooks As Of Today!!! 1,109 to go to 15,000!!! We have now averaged about 418 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971!!! It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~3 years from 2001 to 2004 for our last 10,000 eBooks ***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.] Today, and until we actually GET new Newsletter editors who want to do another portion, there will be only 2 parts. . .this is Part 1, and the eBook listings in Part 2 [New Project Gutenberg Documents]. [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 Over Our 33 12/52 Year History, We Have Now Averaged About 418 eBooks/Yr And This Year We Are Averaging Nearly That New eBook Level. . .PER MONTH! We Are Averaging About 340 eBooks Per Month This Year About 79 Per Week *** ***Hot Requests New Sites and Announcements Aleut is the latest language in our collection, see PT2 of the Newsletter for a complete listing. 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 on there if anyone wants to test. You can access it by visiting http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu:6969 *** Please visit our newest mirror sites: http://www.knowledgerush.com/gutenberg/ [This one does not have our .mp3 files] and ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mirrors/gutenberg Contact: mirrors@cise.ufl.edu *** We are in the process of rewriting some of the general FAQs and would appreciate help proofreading them over the next few months. We've added some new FAQs and generally updated information about Project Gutenberg. Take a look, and email Michael or Greg with any suggestions or corrections. We'll have these updated from time to time, now that we've passed #10,000. A new set of these will be in the works when we pass #20,000. http://www.gutenberg.org/about *** Coltan : A commentary from Bill Hammack's public radio program You can listen to this commentary at http://www.engineerguy.com Recently, I picked up a book about spices, although it was really a geopolitical history. It focused on a tiny Indonesian island that became, in the 17th century, a battle ground for the English and the Dutch, with, of course, the natives caught in the middle. They all wanted the nutmeg that grew there. In the 17th century, a man could sell a small sack of nutmeg for enough to build a large house and then retire there in comfort. The value of nutmeg came partly because of its rarity, but also because Europeans thought it had powerful medicinal qualities. So, for two centuries the English and Dutch battled over the Island, decimating it in the process. At first, when I read of these "nutmeg" wars, I thought how quaint that the European economy should depend on spices from obscure parts of the world. Yet, by the time I finished the book, I realized that my own world operates in exactly the same way. The electronic network that I live in - my computer, cell phone, and pager - depend on something call Coltan. Spelled C-O-L-T-A-N, it's as magic to us as nutmeg was to a 17th century European. Coltan looks like black mud. It's name is a contraction of columbium and tantalum. And it's that tantalum that's important to our world. A gray-blue, very hard metal, it's the key element [in the] called a pinhead capacitor. These electrical devices regulate the voltage and store energy in cell phones, pagers, and computers. In the last few years alone, tens of millions of these tantalum-filled capacitors were manufactured. Coltan is found in three billion year old soil, like that of the Rift Valley in Africa, which contains eighty percent of the world's supply. And, of the eighty percent, the majority is in the region. And much like the nutmeg of the 17th century, Coltan has brought ruin to the Congo. It has made the area attractive to neighboring countries, and Coltan has been a key force in accelerating the civil war within the Congo. By some estimates, these resource-based wars have killed about five million people, and displaced another ten million or so. No doubt, some generation after us will evolve past cell phones and pagers, and will no longer need to run their world with the tantalum that comes in the magic mud coltan. And, no doubt, they will look back at the coltan wars and think them as quaint as the "nutmeg" wars of the 17th century. The message is clear: As we use our cell phones today, we should remember those nutmeg wars, and keep a careful eye on how our technological systems affects the world. To use George Santayana's aphorism: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Copyright 2004 William S. Hammack Enterprises [Reprinted with Bill's direct permission] ***Continuing Requests and Announcements 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. 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At 13,891 eBooks in 33 Years and 02.80 Months We Averaged 418 Per Year [We do nearly that much a month these days!] 34.8 Per Month 1.14 Per Day At 2984 eBooks Done In The 272 Days Of 2004 We Averaged 11.0 Per Day 76.7 Per Week 339.1 Per Month 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 7th was the first Wednesday of 2004, and thus ended PG's production year of 2003 and began the production year of 2004 at noon. This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week. *Flashback!!! 2754 New eBooks So Far in 2004 It took us ~30 years for the first 2654 ! That's the 7.75 months of 2004 as Compared to ~30 years!!! Here Is A Sample Of What Books Were Being Done Around #2754 *Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]

From NewsScan:

TESTS SHOW CELL PHONES DON'T DISRUPT NAVIGATION SYSTEMS [For all those who thought it was always just a conspiracy to keep people on planes out of touch with the rest of the world. . . .] [BTW, a doctor told me the same thing about the signs in doctor's offices to turn off cell phones. . .says only the most primitive phones and medical equipment from decades ago had any interference.] Recent tests by Airbus and American Airlines/Qualcomm indicate that, contrary to popular lore, cellular signals do not disrupt airplanes' navigational systems. The two results were similar for both the CDMA and GSM cellular technologies, but the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission say the tests can't officially be considered in their review of the rules because they were conducted without government oversight. The agencies say they are moving ahead with their own tests. (Wall Street Journal 23 Sep 2004) <http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109589672706925579,00.html> (sub req'd) SONY EMBRACES MP3 FORMAT [Sony learns faster than most. . .perhaps someday these companies will just totally STOP introducing those silly proprietary formats.] In a strategic shift, Sony announced it will add support for MP3 files to some of its portable music players, enabling it to compete directly against rivals such as Apple Computer, whose portable players support MP3 and other file formats. A Sony spokeswoman says new flash-based players with both MP3 and Atrac (Sony's proprietary format) playback will appear as early as this year in Europe, but it's unclear when those players will hit the shelves in the U.S. (AP/Washington Post 23 Sep 2004) www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44121-2004Sep23.html?nav=headlines [and on a related topic] DOES IM MEAN 'INSTANT MUSIC'? Yahoo's purchase of Musicmatch last week for $160 million in cash has raised speculation that it plans to use the acquisition to enable Yahoo Messenger users to share and interact with one another's digital playlists. "The whole advantage that (Yahoo) has is using its broad reach to push products and integrate them," says one source close to the deal. Meanwhile, Microsoft acknowledges that it's planning to do just that with its MSN Messenger and MSN Music services. In fact, MSN Messenger has already quietly begun experimenting with music playlist sharing using a test application called ThreeDegrees. The strategy gives Web portals a leg up in their pursuit of the online music market, currently dominated by Apple's iTunes. And adding more functionality to instant messaging is part of their master plan to transform IM from a simple chatting tool to a control panel for multimedia applications. (CNet News.com 22 Sep 2004) http://news.com.com/Can+IM+morph+into+instant+music/2100-1032_3-5376479.html LIVING LIFE WITHOUT A NET Paid $725 or more for their participation, [a] dozen families in the Northeast, Midwest and Northwest recently gave up the Internet for two weeks as part of a study by Yahoo and advertising firm OMD to demonstrate the emotional connection people have to the Net. The results? One participant admits, "I didn't realize how tough it would be," and reports that he missed online news and weather, door-to-door driving directions and e-mail. Some participants had to rediscover such things as the Yellow Pages, TV, newspapers and movies. In general, the study found that participants felt lost and disconnected (both literally and figuratively). (USA Today 21 Sep 2004) <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-09-21-internet-usat_x.htm> IMAGES BEARING VIRUSES: DO YOU GET THE PICTURE? Security experts are saying it's possible for network vandals to use a flaw in Microsoft Windows XP and Server 2003 systems to embed viruses into digital photos, thereby infecting vulnerable PCs. Marcus Sachs, director of the SANS Internet Storm Center, warns: "We always said there's no way you can be infected just by looking at a photograph online, but now it looks like we may have to eat our words on that. This year we've seen a lot of changes to the fundamental ways we thought we were secure." Microsoft users can download the latest patches from the company's Windows Update site. (Washington Post 23 Sep 2004) <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45126-2004Sep23.html> [RFIDs. . .coming to your house soon] IBM TAG TEAM Microsoft will be hiring 1,000 new employees and spending $250 million over five years to develop a new business unit to support products and services related to radio tags and sensor networks for inventory management. Radio tags can be read in groups, hold far more data than bar codes, and show when and where particular items were made and where they're being shipped to. They don't need batteries, because they receive enough energy to communicate from signals sent by the reader. Analysts such as Navi Radjou of Forrester Research think the challenge for IBM and other companies is to provide a road map laying out small steps toward deployment of radio-tagging and other sensor technologies, because "people won't do big-bang implementations." (New York Times 27 Sep 2004) <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/technology/27rfid.html> GOOGLE OMITS RESULTS FROM SITES BANNED BY CHINA Google's news service in China omits results from Web sites blocked by the government, according to Dynamic Internet Technology Inc., a research firm fighting online censorship. Tests by Dynamic found that Google omits results from the banned sites when search requests are made through computers connecting to the Internet in China. Google acknowledges that its Chinese language service is ignoring results from government-banned sites, but says it does so in order to make its search engine efficient and to shield computer users from clicking on links that lead nowhere. A Google executive says, "Google has decided that in order to create the best possible search experience for our mainland China users we will not include sites whose content is not accessible." Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li sympathizes with the company's predicament: "It's probably killing them to leave some sites out of its index, but they have probably decided they are doing greater good by providing access to all these other sites." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 24 Sep 2004) <http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9753421.htm> iPODS ON THE HIT LIST They're ubiquitous and have changed the way we listen to music but iPods are proving to be a high-tech security risk. The Australian Department of Defense has followed the lead of Britain's Ministry of Defense in banning the use of iPods -- which have large storage capabilities and can be used to siphon information from computers -- in specific defense areas. An Australian government official explains, "The threat from iPods is considered the same as for all other forms of easily portable storage media. The use of such media and associated devices, or their presence within defense areas, is strictly controlled and in some cases prohibited." In July, Britain's Defense Ministry added the Apple music accessory to a list of devices banned in most sections of its UK headquarters and offices abroad. The fear is that devices with large storage capabilities and those with a USB (universal serial bus) plug can be a useful tool for data thieves. (The Age 25 Sep 2004) Rec''d from J. Lamp <http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/24/1095961848693.html> MICROSOFT SUES SPAMMERS Microsoft has filed nine new lawsuits against spammers, and is now involved in more than 100 legal anti-spam cases throughout the world. The latest lawsuit is against Web hosting company National Online Sales and its owner Levon Gillespie, who offer "bulletproof" services for those seeking to send marketing e-mail. Aaron Kornblum, an attorney for Microsoft, says: "This is the first action against a Web host catering to spammers." His rationale for the suit is that National Online Sales and Gillespie are providing "a safe place for spammers to drive customers to." (Reuters/USA Today 25 Sep 204) <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-09-25-ms-sues-spam- host_x.htm> SCHWARZENEGGER WANTS E-VOTE PAPER TRAIL California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation that will bar the use of any electronic voting machine that doesn't produce paper trails to verify votes. Another bill that received his signature will allow the California secretary of state, local election officials or the attorney general to file lawsuits against persons or companies suspected of tampering with voting equipment. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 28 Sep 2004) <http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9778991.htm> You have been reading excerpts from NewsScan: NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization making significant and sustained contributions to the effective management and appropriate use of information technology. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the text, html, or handheld versions of NewsScan Daily, send the appropriate subscribe or unsubscribe messages (i.e., with the word 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the subject line) to: Text version: Send message to NewsScan@NewsScan.com Html version: Send mail to NewsScan-html@NewsScan.com NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html *

From Edupage

CONCERN GROWS OVER JPEG FLAW Some security experts are warning users that a recently announced flaw in the way some Microsoft applications handle JPEG images could lead to the next large-scale virus infection. David Perry of anti-virus firm Trend Micro noted that the combination of several factors has his firm especially worried about the JPEG flaw. Those factors, Perry said, include the number of applications that are affected by the flaw--more than a dozen--and the fact that there has not been a significant virus attack for some time, which may have the effect of lowering users' attention to preventive measures. When the flaw was announced, no code had yet appeared that exploited it. Within the past week, however, such code has been written and has appeared on a private mailing list and a public Web site. Perry characterized the current situation as "the virus equivalent of a harmonic convergence." Others were not as worried about the threat posed by the flaw. Graham Cluley of anti-virus firm Sophos noted that so far no malicious code is being delivered using the flaw. "It is purely being done as a 'proof of concept,'" said Cluley. BBC, 24 September 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3684552.stm You have been reading excerpts from Edupage: If you have questions or comments about Edupage, http://news.com.com/2100-1040-958352.html or 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 *** More Headline News Avoided By Most Of The Major U.S. Media NEW SAT ESSAY PORTION FOCUSES MORE ON STYLE THAN CONTENT Schools and students are flocking to either take the SAT tests before March to avoid the change to handwriting as opposed to only content oriented scoring, while those in a position to only take the test later are practicing on their handwriting like mad, according to various reports I have heard and seen regarding the 2005 SAT [Scholastic Aptitude Test, now owned by College Board testing.] Decades ago research indicated that a typewritten paper, this was before the computer age, was much easier for an academic evaluator to read and grade, and would also get a higher grade, even though the content was the same. In 2005 we will apparently be taking a giant step back-- to the days where penmanship was more important than the ability to type, when the pen was mightier than the PC. All Things Considered reported on September 27, that the school system's "New Generation Takes Up Cursive Writing" and Robert Siegel watched as Bel Air, Maryland, students went back to the basics of formal handwriting, something had previously been going the way of the dinosaur as the computer had become the tool of choice for writing. Testing on analogies and quantitative comparison are now being de-emphasized, as are the reading passages, all in decline in the new 2005 version of the SAT, which vamped and revamped itself in the last few years, setting up an alternative new scoring system I reported on earlier. That scoring system was in response to the fact that the standarized tests such as the SAT and ACT [The "American College Testing" brand] scores had finally fallen so far that this could no longer be ignored. Of course, the solution was to revamp the scoring, not a solution to improve the U.S. educational system. [There have been several comments mentioning that many a recent winner of national awards has been homeschooled; include both last year's National Spelling Bee winner and runner up in that category, not to mention several earlier.] Without even a single decade to evaluate and refine that new scoring system, the SATs are already going through a new face lift that further removes today's scores from a historical perspective that previously dated to WWII. To those who say none of "1984" never happened, I submit that these are merely a few examples out of thousands. FLORIDA SCHOOLS CLOSED, BUT FOOTBALL IS STILL A PRIORITY Many students in Florida are still out of school, due to the effects of recent hurricane damage, but the football team is still going out for practice, as what has been a major effort at a "return to normalcy." RFIDs NOW TRACKING CHILDREN AT THEME PARKS RFIDs [Radio Frequency IDentification tags] are now used to keep track of your kids when they go to theme parks-- I guess you can just go to a "lost and found" and see on the computer screen where they are. Previous uses have been to keep track of school children in Japan, public officials in South America, and inmates in prisons, as well as for the County Dog Catcher to get a head start on those hard to catch dogs. This may be the first use not mandated by some officials of the various government agencies involved, at least as far as the tracking of living beings is concerned. Wal-Mart is reported to be putting RFIDs on every single piece of merchandise in their stores, so watch out if an item you are carrying gets out of your possession, their computers may realize this and have someone bring it out to the checkout counter as you are leaving. [Speaking of those Japanese school kids. . . .] JAPANESE KIDS TRACKED BY RADIO CHIPS [No more saying, "They didn't let me out until an hour ago."] Some schools in Japan are testing a system in which tiny antennae are attached to student backpacks or clothes so the students can be traced by radio. Public school teacher Ichiro Ishihara says, "More than 70 percent of parents supported the trials, indicating there is wide appreciation for this kind of effort. And the kids love it -- they think it's cool." There has also begun the testing in Japan of a system that will allow messages to be sent to parents' cell phones so they know what time their children left school. (Los Angeles Times 28 Sep 2004) <http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology11sep28,1,7887619.story? coll=sns-ap-toptechnology> *** The Bureau of Labor Statistics has published a new survey, which looks at how Americans spend their time. See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf. "Reading as a primary [leisure] activity varied greatly by age. The oldest age group [65 and older] averaged an hour of reading per day, while the youngest [15 to 24] averaged about 8 minutes." The overall average is .33 hours/day (about 19 minutes) for men, and .40 hours/day (about 24 minutes) for women. *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK TV ADS REDUCED DURING PREMIERES While I was watching the season premiere of a television show this week, I noticed something odd. . .no commercials, no ads. Nothing on that order until 21 minutes into the show, so I did a little note taking and found the ads to have been placed at: 21 mins 34 mins 45 mins 54 mins thus giving show viewing segments of: 21 mins 10 mins 8 mins 6 mins for a total of 45 minutes of show, when the usual time given for programs has now "Honey, I shrunk the TV shows" down to only about 40 minutes on the average day. Thus we got 3/4 show and 1/4 commercials during the premiere, and none at all for the first 1/3+ of the show, rather than the usual 2/3 show and 1/3 commercials. Yes, we usually get only about 40 minutes of programming per 60 minutes on the clock. For those keeping score at home, you might want to try it, and you will notice that once they have you hooked on the show, they put in more and more ads as the show goes on. If you buy any of the old shows, you will notice they have 52 minutes of show and only 8 minutes of commercials. The commercial breaks used to be 2 minutes long and usually in two equally spaced segments per half hour show, and those "stations breaks" really WERE there for your local station to have a few seconds to identify themselves, let you hear the beep telling you the exact time, etc. I did the same note taking process with one of the popular daytime talk shows, and got 60 ads in one hour, obviously most of them took less than 30 seconds, or you would not be able to get much of the show on. Some shows now even interrupt themselves to give ads for something happening later in the show. . .and I do NOT mean ye old technique of saying "NEXT, see this," when you KNOW whatever it is will definitely NOT BE NEXT!!! No, I see shows now putting in little previews of parts of that show that are coming, and I don't mean just the talk shows, who have some reason to let you know how an idea is going to be pursued, but I mean sit-coms, etc. All this puts less and less program and more and more promotional material on your television. I admit, that _I_ consider "watch this show later" to be advertizing, even though the television executives will try to get them counted in the same slot as some of the PSA's or Public Service Announcements, which I notice have now been nearly completely relegated from normal hours to those times I only watch when I found sleep to be very elusive. I won't even go into how I felt the first time I woke up to advertizing during the previews at the movies-- or various kinds of "product placement," etc. Even PBS and NPR, which used to have NO advertizing-- only a few seconds of the name of the sponsors in the whole hour of programming now end their programs five minutes before the hour, just like the networks we've always been accustomed to, and fill that time with an assortment of ads for products, companies and shows-- now I even hear "breaks" in the interview programs in order to give yet even more time for advertizing on a show that claims to be "non-commercial." I wonder what I will do the next time I am invited on one of those "non-commercial" shows? Will I insist that there NOT be advertizing connected with my presence on their programs? Contam *STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK Chicago Mayor Daley said, "We're not inside your home or your business. The city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets and we own the alleys." [Referring to citywide surveillance project. See story further above.] *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists About the Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter: Goes out approximately at noon each Wednesday, but various different relays will get it to you at different times; you can subscribe directly, just send me email to find out how, or to subscribe directly by yourself, go to: http://www.gutenberg.org/subs.shtml and About the Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter: Goes out approximately first Wednesday of each month. 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