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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 1 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 53 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 90% of the Way to 15,000!!! 13,538 eBooks As Of Today!!! 6,462 to go to 20,000 We have now averaged over 400 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 NOT NEWS!!! Perhaps the most important news of the week is that Australia seems to be reversing its stance against copyright extenstion. Just a couple years ago we were reporting that the Australian Parliament has passed a resolution stating they would resist all attempts to force a longer copyright period upon them via what amounts to economic warfare. However, several sources have reported and confirmed that it is highly likely that this official resolution will go the way of the dinosaurs by the end of this year, giving it a lifespan not all that much longer than that of The Gulf Of Tonkin Resolution that was used to start the Viet Nam War. 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Forster [Forster #2][rmwvwxxx.xxx] 2641 May 2001 St. Martin's Summer, by Rafael Sabatini [RS #6] [stmsmxxx.xxx] 2640 May 2001 Villa Rubein et al, by John Galsworthy [JG#7/FS#4][vlrbnxxx.xxx] 2639 Contents: Villa Rubein A Man of Devon A Knight Salvation of a Forsyte [This is our 4th Forsyte piece] The Silence May 2001 The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky [Dostoieffsky #5][idiotxxx.xxx] 2638 [Also spelled: Dostoevsky, and several other variants, and Feodor/Fe"dor] May 2001 Youth, by Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi[Tolstoy/Tolstoi #10][youthxxx.xxx] 2637 .(Note: the filename youthxxx.xxx is also used for a totally different .(eBook, #525 in etext96) May 2001 Historical Nights' Entertainment, V1, by Sabatini [hnitsxxx.xxx] 2636 [FT: The Historical Nights' Entertainment][Author: Rafael Sabatini [#5]] May 2001 Clarence, by Bret Harte [Bret Harte #32] [clrncxxx.xxx] 2635 *Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]

From NewsScan:

HACKER WANTS TO MAKE iTUNES EVERYBODY'S TUNES [More below in Edupage section] Jon Lech Johansen, the Norwegian hacker who gained notoriety for developing DVD encryption-cracking software, has created a software key that unlocks the encryption Apple uses for its AirPort Express -- which lets users broadcast digital music from Apple's online iTunes Music Store on a stereo not plugged into a computer. Johansen, who posted the key on his Web site (mockingly named "So Sue Me"), is an open source advocate critical of Apple for using a proprietary system to ensure that its products work only with each other. Apple has not yet reacted to this new intrusion. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 12 Aug 2004) http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9385704.htm and in a related story THE NEW MEANING OF OWNERSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE When you buy a CD from a store, you "own" that music, and as long as you don't bootleg it or charge lots of people money to listen to it, it's yours. But if you purchase that same playlist online, in most cases you're purchasing the "rights" to the content which is "locked" by some type of digital rights management software. Not only that, but those rights may change over time, dictated by the whims of the music company you get them from. For instance, Apple Computer recently upped the number of computers on which its iTunes music files can be concurrently installed from three to five, but there's nothing stopping it from making its DRM more restrictive in the future -- although the company says that's unlikely. Meanwhile, customers of RealNetwork's Rhapsody music service "rent" their songs for a monthly fee but can play them only on their PCs, not their MP3 players. All these variables mean that consumers will need to be better informed in the future about what it is they're actually getting for their money, says Alan Davidson, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology: "DRM underscores the point that consumers are going to have to become a lot more sophisticated about what they're buying." (Wall Street Journal 16 Aug 2004) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109260940215891895,00.html and in yet perhaps an even bigger related story REALNETWORKS UPS THE ANTE, SLASHES PRICES In a strategy to undermine Apple Computer's dominance in the online music market, RealNetworks is cutting its prices at the RealPlayer Music Store to 49 cents per song and $4.99 per album. Apple's iTunes Music Store sells songs for 99 cents apiece and albums for $9.99. The discount will prove a losing proposition for RealNetworks in the short term, because it will be charging less than it pays music companies in royalties, but RealNetworks hopes its radical move will help to unseat Apple, which by some estimates commands a 70% share of the music-download market. RealNetworks also seeks to draw attention to its Harmony technology, which enables users to listen to songs purchased from RealPlayer on Apple iPod music players. Up until now, iPods have played only music purchased at iTunes. (Wall Street Journal 17 Aug 2004) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109269116575992799,00.html (sub req'd) GOOGLE SLASHES SHARE PRICE [This is a very conservative report compared to the others I've heard] Google has cut the expected share price for its initial public stock offering by almost a third, an indication that demand from investors is considerably less than was expected. The Internet search firm now says its expected price range will be between $85 and $95 per share -- whereas its original projected price range was between $108 to $135 per share. Google also announced that the number of shares ultimately available to the public will be reduced from about 25 million to 19.6 million. (Washington Post 18 Aug 2004) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10478-2004Aug18.html [More on the RFID front. . .telling ADS to go to YOUR house, and telling ADVERTIZERS if their product is in your pantry!] THEY'RE INTO YOUR TELLY, NEXT THEY'LL BE INTO YOUR PANTRY The top four U.S. broadcast networks -- CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox -- have signed on to comply with a new 12-character code system called Ad-ID, to be used for tracking all advertising. The system is being compared in importance to the introduction three decades ago of the universal product code (UPC) bar codes for tracking retail sales and inventory. Marketing professor Peter Sealey at the University of California at Berkeley explains: "It's going to allow advertisers for the first time to precisely target individuals for whom the message has relevance. This way we can create on the fly a different ad for a different household." Example: a diaper manufacturer could select households with babies while a dental adhesive maker would pinpoint their denture-wearing neighbors, based on information that consumers provided. Sealy says that five years or so from now Ad-ID and RFID systems will be used together: "Then we could measure whether we delivered the commercial to you, and, as I am monitoring your pantry, whether you bought the product, too." (Reuters/USA Today 18 Aug 2004) //www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2004-08-18-rfid-plus-ads_xhtm 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

FCC TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE OF WIRELESS OUTAGES The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled that wireless carriers must submit reports to government officials concerning significant outages in service, though those reports will be kept from public view. Disclosure of outages had been in place for wireless carriers since 1991. After September 11, 2001, however, the information in the reports was deemed potentially useful to would-be terrorists, and the reports ended. Noting that emergency services increasingly depend on wireless communication, and that disclosure of outages promotes a more stable wireless network, the FCC will again require the reports from wireless carriers. The Department of Homeland Security and wireless telecoms argued that the reports pose a security risk and that a voluntary reporting system would be preferable. In a concession, the FCC agreed that the reports will be confidential and will not be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Wired News, 11 August 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,64528,00.html and in a related story FCC EXEMPTS HIGHER ED FROM CALEA The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a preliminary ruling that exempts colleges and universities from costly projects to reengineer computer networks to comply with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). CALEA requires telecom companies to build their networks in such a way that federal officials can eavesdrop on phone conversations and e-mail exchanges with proper authority, and some have called for the FCC to rule that CALEA should also cover computer networks that carry Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service. The FCC will not make a final decision on CALEA until late this fall, but in the meantime it has issued a ruling that identifies certain entities that would be exempt from CALEA for the purposes of VoIP phone service. Aside from higher education, exempted entities include libraries, hotels, and coffee shops. Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 August 2004 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/08/2004081301n.htm DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO COPYRIGHT EDUCATION Citing what it calls one-sided information about copyright presented by groups including the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to school students, the American Library Association (ALA) will release its own educational materials to schools. ALA officials said that copyright information given to schools from industry groups neglects to address such issues as fair use and that the bias of industry groups doesn't serve the best interests of school kids. A representative of the BSA said his group's materials are not biased and that they focus simply on right versus wrong rather than on covering the range of relevant issues. Darrell Luzzo, vice president of education for Junior Achievement Worldwide, which last year cosponsored a program with the MPAA on copyright education, said that if his organization were going to repeat the project, it "would want to talk more about fair use." Discussions with educators later convinced Luzzo that the program should have been more broadly based rather than focusing on just one side of the issue. Wired News, 13 August 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,64543,00.html [iTunes Restrictions Continue To Fall] DVD JON GOES AFTER AIRPORT EXPRESS The Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon has published a software key for Apple Computer's AirPort Express, a wireless device that allows users to transmit songs from iTunes on a computer to a stereo. Jon Johansen, now 20, found himself the subject of criminal prosecution as a 15-year-old when he published a key to the encryption for DVDs, allowing users to make copies--legitimate or otherwise--of encrypted DVDs. Ultimately, Johansen was acquitted of those charges. Johansen has been an outspoken critic of proprietary software and voiced his support on his Web site for a recent announcement from RealNetworks that they had developed an application to allow their content to be played on Apple's iPod music player. The software key that Johansen published this week for the AirPort Express is the third time this year he has defeated Apple's copy protections for music files. The new key, according to some experts, could allow development of a range of products from companies other than Apple that will work with the AirPort Express device. San Jose Mercury News, 12 August 2004 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9385704.htm MICROSOFT TO OFFER BASIC WINDOWS XP IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES [Linux Forces Microsoft Prices Downward In Competition] Microsoft will distribute a slimmed-down version of Windows XP in five developing nations beginning this fall as part of the company's ongoing efforts to facilitate computer use and literacy. Consumers in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia will see the so-called Windows XP Starter Edition on PCs starting in October; the other two countries in the program were not named. The Starter Edition of the operating system has fewer features than the standard package, and versions are customized for each country, including appropriate languages and items such as screen saver photos that reflect the local landscape. Also part of Microsoft's initiative is a program that offers free operating systems and inexpensive Office software packages to certain schools in 67 developing countries. Prices for the Starter Edition were not announced, though some reports indicated it might be about $36. According to a spokesperson from Microsoft, the low price allows the company to compete with Linux and may also discourage piracy, since buyers of inexpensive, legitimate copies of the software are eligible for patches and updates. CNET, 11 August 2004 http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5304023.html UNLISTED PHONE NUMBERS PUBLISHED [Ooops!] Officials at Verizon Communications said this week that due to a computer problem, phone numbers of as many as 12,000 Verizon customers who asked that their phone numbers be unlisted may end up published in phone directories. Verizon published at least 9,000 of the numbers in its own directory that includes Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia, but the company, which is required to disclose its customers' numbers to competing directory services, inadvertently released as many as 12,000 unlisted numbers to other directories. Verizon has offered to refund the fees that consumers pay to have their numbers unlisted or to change customers' phone numbers free of charge if they so choose. Officials from Verizon said the problem resulted from a conversion to a new computer system. Washington Post, 11 August 2004 (registration req'd) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55022-2004Aug10.html [More Oopses!] MICROSOFT IDENTIFIES PROBLEMS WITH SP2 Microsoft has released a list of about 50 applications, including some of its own, that the company said will have problems working properly with the long-awaited Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP. The service pack include a number of important security upgrades that consumers have been calling for, and SP2 was released to manufacturers earlier this month. One of the changes, however, is that SP2 activates the Windows firewall by default, and this firewall causes problems with a number of applications because it affects their ability to receive data over the Internet. The list of affected applications includes products from Symantec, Computer Associates, and Macromedia, as well as several products from Microsoft, including Visual Studio .Net, Operations Manager, and SQL Server. Some companies have issued advisories to employees not to install SP2 until all potential problems have been identified, though others insist that the security benefits from the service pack are more important than possible conflicts. CNET, 16 August 2004 http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5311280.html 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 SEVERAL STRANGE POLITICAL DEALS STRUCK IN THESE OLYMPICS OUSTED GREEK OLYMPIC LEADER OUTSTED/REINSTATED, LIKE APPLE'S STEVE JOBS Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki was ousted and later reinstated as head of Greek Olympic Committee. In 1994, she was named Vice - Chair of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 1996, she was appointed President of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games' Bid Committee. In 1998, she was appointed Greek Ambassador at Large. As of May 2000, she was President of the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. She was the first woman in history to be president of a successful Olympic bid committee, yet was forced out of her position as CEO due to political infighting. However, those who forced her out never got the ball rolling and the games' preparations fell very much behind until she was returned to her post as CEO after three years of what can only be referred to as extreme political silliness that was almost suicidal. Rumors were already rampant that the Olympics would be removed from Greece and awarded to one of the other bidding countries before those who ousted her from the CEO position after she won the bid finally realized there was actual work to be done and reinstated her. It is not only amazing that this sort of thing happens on a regular basis, but that the news media regularly covers it up, especially when the victim is a woman. [It was nearly impossible to find even one article on this.] and Olympic Regulations Changed At the Last Minute There have been any number of rule changes made for this Olympics, many of them under public suspicion of being politically oriented, or occidented, as the case may be, especially in the table tennis, or ping-pong, world events. Not only have nearly half the points, from 21 to 11, been cut out, but the ball has been made larger. A greater concern on the geopolitical spectrum has been to to eschew the possibility of an all Chinese final match, as has happened for both the men's and women's doubles teams in half of the events for the history of table tennis as an Olympic event. This year all of a country's teams must play in the same "draw," which now provides for a 0% chance that two teams from the same country can make this year's championship match, even if those two teams are the best. Many other events have had their rules changed, some at such times as only a few days before the events, thus requiring Olympians for various events to make last minute alterations in strategies which have been in preparation for four years. Some of these changes in their programs have been fatal to their chances to medal and maybe even more possibly fatal to their health than we would like. This safety item, much less the these political ramifications, had been swept under the carpet by the major news coverage. They say the safety and integrity of the competitors is a primary, if not THE primary concern, but such rule changes make you wonder, especially when such changes are constantly being made, even right up to the very last days. Perhaps the rules for each Olympics can be announced when the site is picked, or at the latest by the time the previous Olympics closing ceremonies take place, thus giving a more level playing field for preparations, and for contesting rule changes well beforehand. Many of these changes have been made in the high visibility sports such as gymnastics, table tennis and volleyball, and have changed a lot of the endurance factors to non-endurance factors making teams and individuals have to concentrate more on tactics than strategy, but making for a more televisual event to sell on the open market. In some cases this is like asking a Marathon runner to think along the lines of a sprinter just for increased entertainment value. In addition, those who watch those extemely high-visibility events such as gymnastics have probably noticed the lack of the extensive use of "release moves" from the high bar for men or in uneven bars for women. These release moves have been the most exciting and/or the highest point value elements in previous Olympics, but so far, they they have severely reduced in the planned routines. This was due to severe rule changes that disallowed the traditional dropped scores of the worst performance in each event, thus encouraging an extraordinary effort in the team competitions, but you might be in for a disappointment this year if you expect performances similar, or exceeding those of previous Olympics. Last night's women's team finals turned out to be a nearly perfect example of this, as the Romanian team won with a most conservative set of routines, but performed without major mishaps. The Chinese had much more spectacular routines, which might have won under the old scoring system, but a spectacular fall removed all hopes to do well enough for any medal at all. *** In addition, there have been announcements that Greece's premiere athlete[s] will be arrested and taken to court for not showing up for manadatory drug tests. It seems a little strange for private organizations such as Olympic Committees to be able to enforce an entirely internal regulation as if it were a state criminal act. [The previous was composed before the events] Announcements by the IOC [International Olympic Committee] today, in various venues, say the IOC is no longer pursuing the two they have been after since the Olympics opened, finally admitting that they have no authority over the two since withdrawing officially, but offical state's attorneys of Greece are not giving up, and at the moment are reported to have opened yet another investigation. Thus is appears that the Greek Olympic Committee still has a long arm that reaches beyond its own official jurisdiction. SIMPLE SOLUTION OF THE WEEK "Only wimps use backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on FTP, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)" - Linus Torvalds *** ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK Tobacco, one of the legally accepted "drugs of our civilization," yields 20 times the profit per acre of raising the usually grains and other similar crops. . .in case you were wondering just where all those billions of dollars came from for the tobacco companies to do all that lobbying, advertizing, and to hire scientists, who either proclaimed that tobacco was neither addictive nor harmful, or who hid the evidence that it was addictive and harmful. * ONE IN FIVE ENGINEERS LACKS 4-YEAR DEGREE [From Newsscan, as above] It turns out that more than 20% of U.S. science and engineering workers do not have a four-year bachelor's degree, according to a new report issued by the National Science Foundation. Five percent hold high school diplomas and 17% have two-year associate's degrees. The study indicates that in the in the computer and math science fields, the percentage of those without four-year degrees is about 40%.The news highlights a growing crisis in the U.S., as the number of science and engineering doctorate degrees granted continues to fall and the number of educational visas issued to foreign candidates also shrinks. Despite these dismal figures, NSF data indicates that graduate enrollment in science and engineering programs reached a record of nearly 455,000 students in fall 2002. (CNet News.com 16 Aug 2004) http://news.com.com/2100-1022-5312309.html A note on statistics in general: I have noticed, even in years without major elections, that a huge amount of the "information" we received from Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw is a direct quotation from press releases, much of which are provided by politicians to support their own positions. Speaking of Rather, Brokaw and Jennings, not to mention Lehrer on PBS, their average age is well over twice the median age in the United States, and three times the world at large. *** ODD QUOTATION OF THE WEEK "There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking." Alfred Korzybski, founder of Semantics [along with S. I. Hawyakawa] * FREE TRADE FINALLY REACHES THE CITIZEN LEVEL Illinois has legislation to allow its citizens to buy drugs from Canada and other countries. Of course, the companies who have been charging twice as much for the same drugs IN the U.S. as elsewhere are complaining, as is the FDA [Food and Drug Administration, since this bypasses them and their authoritarian regime structures. *** *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://gutenberg.net/subs.shtml and About the Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter: Goes out approximately first Wednesday of each month. 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