Weekly_December_07.txt *The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, December 07, 2005 PT1* *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******** PT1A *** Editor's comments appear in [brackets]. Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart@pobox.com or gbnewby@pglaf.org Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email hart@pobox.com * WANTED!

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* Wanted: People who are involved in conversations on Slashdot, Salon, etc. * TABLE OF CONTENTS [Search for "*eBook" or "*Intro". . .to jump to that section, etc.] *eBook Milestones *Introduction *Hot Requests, New Sites and Announcements *Continuing Requests and Announcements *Progress Report *Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report *Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report *Permanent Requests For Assistance: *Donation Information *Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections *Mirror Site Information *Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks *Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet? *Flashback *Weekly eBook update: This is now in PT2 of the Weekly Newsletter Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter Corrections in separate section 2 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 58 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones* Project Gutenberg of Europe Passed 100 eBook Mark!!! 17,713 eBooks As Of Today!!! [Includes Australian eBooks] We Are ~89% of the Way to 20,000!!! 14,707 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's ~250 eBooks per Month for ~56 Months We Have Produced 2757 eBooks in 2005!!! 2,287 to go to 20,000!!! 7,774 from Distributed Proofreaders Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B] 511 from Project Gutenberg of Australia 103 from Project Gutenberg of Europe [We will start including these in 2006] We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Are Averaging ~250 books Per Month This Year [This change is due to the opening of Project Gutenberg sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org] This Site Is Averaging ~57 eBooks Per Week This Year 60 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2002 to 2005 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~2.00 years from Oct. 2003 to Nov. 2005 from 10,000 to 17,500 * ***Introduction [The Newsletter is now being sent in two sections, so you can directly go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments, News, Notes & Queries, and 2. Weekly eBook Update Listing. Note bene that PT1 is now being sent as PT1A and PT1B. [Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us: hart@pobox.com and gbnewby@pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.] This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] OPEN SOURCE LICENSE UP FOR REVISION The Free Software Foundation has announced plans to revise the General Public License (GPL), which covers many open source applications including the Linux operating system. The license has not been revised since 1991, long before Linux and other open source applications had been implemented widely. Now, according to Eben Moglen, the foundation's general counsel, "The big boys, corporations and governments, have far more reason to be interested and concerned." The GPL and the Free Software Foundation are the creations of Richard Stallman, an unwavering critic of proprietary software and the author of much of the source code that led to the Linux operating system. Stallman has used the license and the foundation to foster what he says are the four principles of software: the ability to use, study, copy, and modify it. Stallman acknowledged that with the success of open source applications in recent years, the task of revising the GPL is complicated by patent issues, which must allow open source and proprietary software to run on the same systems. A first draft of the new GPL will be presented at MIT in mid-January. The revision process is expected to be completed by the end of 2006, with the Free Software Foundation making final decisions about changes. New York Times, 30 November 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/30/technology/30license.html THE RISING TIDE OF ONLINE COLLEGE APPLICATIONS [Is This Perpetuating "The Digital Divide?"] Motivated by a number of factors, growing numbers of college hopefuls are turning to the Web to submit applications, though concerns about the medium persist. For colleges and universities, online applications generally mean easier processing with fewer mistakes. Many institutions waive application fees--which can run as high as $75--for students who apply online. As a result, most institutions are seeing higher percentages of applications filed online, and many students are applying at more institutions. According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, 57 percent of students applied to college online in 2004, compared to 35 percent one year earlier. The Higher Education Research Institute reported that in 2004, more than 16 percent of students applied to seven or more schools, up from less than 10 percent in 1994. Some schools do not waive fees for online applications, however, among them Yale University and Harvard University. And despite growing confidence in the Internet, some students remain skeptical that their materials have been received. William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard, said, "Students will send it electronically, then they will fax it to you, and then they will send it snail mail." Wall Street Journal, 30 November 2005 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113331711186209812.html NEW ORLEANS ANNOUNCES WI-FI NETWORK City officials from New Orleans have announced plans to deploy a wireless network covering the entire city by the end of 2006. The network will provide improved communication for city services, including fire and police departments, and--the city hopes--will draw residents and businesses back to the city following this year's disastrous hurricane season. When complete, the network will provide free Internet access to anyone in the city. Unlike several other municipal networks under development, the New Orleans network will be installed and operated by the city itself. Still, city officials must grapple with a state law that restricts Internet access speeds on municipal networks. Unless the city is able to change the law or win an exemption, it will only be allowed to offer transfer speeds of 144 Kbps. Representatives of cable and phone companies that offer Internet access have argued that cities should not be allowed to offer services that compete with services from private companies. City officials reject that notion, arguing that commercial Internet access is too expensive and inconvenient for many potential users. Silicon.com, 30 November 2005 http://networks.silicon.com/broadband/0,39024661,39154681,00.htm INTERNATIONAL GROUP SUES OVER .COM MANAGEMENT The World Association of Domain Name Developers has filed a lawsuit in a California court against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign over a deal recently reached between the two organizations. After resolving a dispute over VeriSign's Site Finder service, which directed users who mistyped URLs to VeriSign's Web site, ICANN agreed to an extension of the contract that allows VeriSign to manage the .com and .net domains. Although the extension runs from 2007 to 2012, the lawsuit filed by the developers association contends that the contract "provides for the automatic renewal of the agreement and thereby precludes competitors from ever entering the .com and .net domain name registration market," thereby establishing a monopoly for the domains. The only means for another company to bid on the work, according to the suit, is if VeriSign goes out of business or fails to meet the terms of the contract. A statement from ICANN said the lawsuit is intended to divert attention away from an ICANN meeting currently being held in Vancouver. BBC, 29 November 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4482292.stm MICROSOFT TWEAKS IE TO SIDESTEP EOLAS PATENT Microsoft has made a change to its Internet Explorer browser to avoid infringing on a patent held by Eolas Technologies, though Microsoft continues to dispute the validity of that patent. Eolas was granted a patent in 1998 for a technology that allows certain programs, such as applets or ActiveX controls, to be launched automatically from Web pages. Eolas sued Microsoft in 1999 and in 2003 was awarded $521 million for infringement of its intellectual property. That case has been working its way through appeals courts and is set for a retrial. In the meantime, Microsoft has opted to modify its browser so that users must manually accept the launching of ActiveX controls on Web pages. Unlike an earlier proposal, the one implemented will not require users to accept each such control on a Web page but simply to accept them all at once. Microsoft's Michael Wallent said this solution is less intrusive and that for most users, it will be "an almost invisible change." Microsoft is working with developers to rewrite Web pages in a way to minimize the effects of the change. Internet News, 2 December 2005 http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3568286 [Meanwhile The Rest of the World is in High Gear] SINGAPORE TO INVEST IN ELECTRONIC SECTOR The government of Singapore has announced plans to invest nearly $600 million over the next decade to foster growth in the digital sector of the country's economy. Singapore's Economic Development Board will manage the investments, which will support four areas: attracting businesses from outside the country; fostering a climate that encourages residents of the country to pursue careers in digital media; funding research and development; and providing financial backing for electronic projects involving local and overseas interests. Vivian Balakrishnan, second minister for trade and industry, said the country hopes that the investment will generate 30,000 new jobs in Singapore by 2018. The announcement coincided with the opening of a game development facility by Electronic Arts. Officials in Singapore hope that the country's digital industry will grow to nearly $6 billion by 2018. CNET, 5 December 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5982727.html INTEL UPS INVESTMENT IN INDIA Intel has announced plans to invest $1 billion in India, where it already operates the company's largest nonmanufacturing site outside the United States. That site, in Bangalore, hosts development efforts for software. The new investment, expected over the next five years, will be split between the existing research and development efforts and local firms. Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel, said, "We will grow our local operations, boost venture capital investments, and work closely with the government, industry, and educators." The company said it has not made any decisions about opening manufacturing facilities in India, though such an option remains open. The costs of doing business in countries including India are significantly lower than in the United States. Some estimates put the salary for an Indian software engineer at one-sixth of what a comparably skilled engineer would earn in the United States. BBC, 5 December 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4499362.stm [More Strange Microsoft Browser News] RHAPSODY USERS CAN SKIP THE DOWNLOAD RealNetworks has introduced a Web-based version of its Rhapsody online music service, untethering existing users from their usual computers and opening the service to users with non-Windows-based computers. Until now, Rhapsody users had to download an application to their computers to access the service. With the new offering, users can access the service from any computer using their existing Rhapsody names and passwords. The new feature also allows Mac users and those with Linux-based computers to access Rhapsody. The catch is that the Web-based service only permits music streaming--customers who want to purchase tracks will still be required to use the downloaded application. Rhapsody also allows users to listen to 25 songs per month for free. Subscribers can listen to an unlimited number of songs. Rob Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks, said he wouldn't be bothered if most users of the Web-based service choose only to listen to free songs because "the Internet advertising market is doing pretty well." Wall Street Journal, 5 December 2005 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113379130776613997.html 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 [As requested adding sources, etc., when possible. Remember, the subject is not the article's subject, the subject is the manipulation of the world news.] * Florida Jury Acquits Professor of 8 Terror Charges Professor Sami Al-Arian had been accused of being part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, along with three others. Yesterday a jury acquitted him of 8 of those charges, but left at least as many of the charges still on the table, and prosecutors will have to decide if they want to proceed. Source: Standard-Speaker, Tampa Independent Florida Alligator, FL * Former Capitol Hill Press Secretary Thomas C. Springer was arrested yet again for bank robbery, after someone tailed his blue Geo Metro from the scene calling 911. [Could fiction writers do any better?] A Montgomery County Police spokesman said Mr. Springer was responsible for 7 or more such bank robberies, all in Montgomery County in approximately the last year. In addition, his bank robbery career dates back to his initial arrest in 1989. He spent a year in prison and was released, that time for 3 Maryland banks he hit. He also served another year plus in North Carolina for bank robbery after being arrested in October, 1995. Source: The Washington Post * Giant C-130 Hercules Cargo Plane Crashes In Iran Capitol Various reports indicate the original pilot walked away, saying the plane was unsafe to fly, but after six hours, and various technical difficulties and after stalling on the runway a handful of times, the plane finally managed to get off the runway only to crash into a building, and the death toll is already well above 100, most of them a group of journalists covering military units. Source: ABC Asia Pacific TV / Radio Australia, BBC, PBS *DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK United States Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice denies she told Germen Chancellor Angela Merkel that it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have flown a German man, Khaled el-Masri, to one of the secret CIA prisons in Europe. Secretary Rice did acknowledge that the CIA had created such prisons, but not that the prisoners had been flown to the for purposes of torture. Apparently all the detainees in these secret prisons in Europe have been flown across the Mediterranean to some new secret locations in northern Africa from prisons in Poland, Romania and other undisclosed locations. el-Masri had been detained in an Afghan secret site and is now suing the CIA for wrongful imprisonment. He was originally taken into custody by three men, in civilian clothing, but well armed, as he was crossing the border between Serbia and Macedonia because his name is linked to 9/11 because it is that same as a hijacker's name. In at least one instance such a suit was foiled, by the simple process of not allowing the plaintiff to board a plane to the U.S. Yesterday the lawsuit was finally filed, by the ACLU. Source: BBC, Metro Toronto, Malaysia Star, The Age [of Australia], Independent, UK. *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK Following Verizon's lead, more and more healthy companies will get out from under their pension funds. [See previous comments on bailing out of pension funds] * The New York Stock Exchange will be forced by competitors to finally stop blocking the oncoming electronic age, and will have to become more computer and network oriented. *STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK "But The Pension Fund Was Just Sitting There!" Doonesbury, Collected Works, from 1978-1979 [Shouldn't someone be hiring Gary Trudeau as Chief Pundit?] *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK Remember when Dan Rather was offered $5 million to replace Walter Cronkite back in the 1980's? Today the price is $25 million and offered to Katie Couric to lure her away from NBC's Today Show to CBS Evening News. [If you check the inflation figures during Rather's tenure you'll find they were nowhere near 500% for the period, as the rich continue to get richer and the poor get poorer.] *** 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 a moment with you laid back time's a blue octopus embracing my ankles, my feet like birds cut through airy waves of memory polyphonic castles erected in the realm of newspeak sounds upon sounds describe majestic towers sweet melody of understanding playing over and over again the abyssal voice: lonesome mariners befriending oysters their old secrets revealed through long voyages initiation a dialogue of alikeness opening up door after or after door above a seagull: caresses came to resemble its dance touch of feathers spreading wide in horizons of color ethereal sensations, hear mermaids singing loved songs the rhythm of utter belonging joyfully contained in a moment with you 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