GWeekly_February_02.txt The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, February 02, 2005 PT1 *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971****** Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart@pobox.com or gbnewby@pglaf.org Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email hart@pobox.com HOT REQUESTS I was just wondering if you or might know someone from PG who could help a Linux newbie like me. There are some programs I want to install, but I need step-by-step guidance to ensure the programs compile correctly and so forth. Jared Buck <JBuck814366460@aol.com> * Request someone to find a paper copy of The Breaking Point, by Mary Roberts Rinehart We need to know the last line of Chapter 22, and the first line of Chapter 23 [XXII-XXIII] * HEADLINE NEWS Project Gutenberg of Canada needs your help! Please email: pgcanada@lists.pglaf.org * v0.2 version of PodReader is out, and it interfaces to PG. This allows users to browse the catalog on their Desktop, pick a book, and have it downloaded to their iPod in the correct format...this is a good plus for PG users since it makes it a lot easier to get to PG documents. http://homepage.mac.com/ptwobrussell/podreader.html * 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 http://www.archive.org Don't worry, many of the numbers listed are out of date, but you should get all the files when you pass through to the original sites.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! * 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 75 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones 15,247 eBooks As Of Today!!! 12,185 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 We Produced About 4,049 eBooks In 2004 We Have Produced 291 eBooks in 2005 We Are ~52.5% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000 We are ~5% of the Way from 15,000 to 20,000 4,753 to go to 20,000!!! We have now averaged 450+ eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971!!! We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Are Averaging About 291 eBooks Per Month This Year We Are Averaging About 73 eBooks Per Week This Year 75 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2001 to 2004 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~1.25 years from Oct. 2003 to Jan. 2005 from 10,000 to 15,000 * ***Introduction [The Newsletter is now being sent in two sections, so you can directly go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments, News, Notes & Queries, and 2. Weekly eBook Update Listing.] [Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. 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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 01.00 months of this year, we produced 291 new eBooks. It took us from July 1971 to July 1995 to produce our first 291 eBooks! That's 4 WEEKS as Compared to ~24 Years! 75 New eBooks This Week 78 New eBooks Last Week 291 New eBooks This Month [Jan] 291 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 291 New eBooks in 2005 4049 New eBooks in 2004 4164 New eBooks in 2003 2441 New eBooks in 2002 1240 New eBooks in 2001 ==== 12185 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 49.00 Months! 15,172 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 11,001 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 4,034 New eBooks In Last 12 Months 406 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia *Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report Since completing its first eBook (#3320) on Mar 13th, 2001, the Distributed Proofreaders team has now produced its 6,390th eBook (#14867). Of these are 5,992 unique, brand-new titles. Projects completed during the past year: Mar 2004 - 365 Apr 2004 - 276 May 2004 - 235 Jun 2004 - 232 Jul 2004 - 231 Aug 2004 - 220 Sep 2004 - 182 Oct 2004 - 263 Nov 2004 - 280 Dec 2004 - 287 Jan 2005 - 248 Feb 2005 - 11 (as of 2 Feb) * 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 *** Today Is Day #21 of 2005 This Completes Week #3 and Month #01.00 343 Days/49 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 4,753 Books To Go To #20,000 [Our production year begins/ends 1st Wednesday of the month/year] 73 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 Thanks to very good recent publicity, the Distributed Proofreading project has greatly accelerated its pace. 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Use your Web browser or FTP program to visit our master download site (or a mirror) if you know the file's name you want. Try: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs or ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/ and then navigate to the appropriate directory and look for the first five characters of the file's name. Note that updated eBooks usually go in their original directory (e.g., etext99, etext00, etc.) *** Statistical Review In the 4 weeks of this year, we have produced 291 new eBooks. It took us from 1971 to 1993 to produce our FIRST 291 eBooks!!! That's 4 WEEKS as Compared to ~24 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #291 Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ### A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright Jul 1995 United States Declaration of Independence in HTML [1whenxxa.zip] 300C Jul 1995 Tales From Two Hemispheres, Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen [twohexxx.xxx] 299 Jul 1995 The Market-Place by Harold Frederic [Frederic #2] [marktxxx.xxx] 298 The Flirt, by Booth Tarkington 297 Jul 1995 The Cash Boy, by Horatio Alger, Jr. [Alger #2] [cashbxxx.xxx] 296 Jul 1995 The Early Short Fiction, Edith Wharton #5 Part One[whrt1xxx.xxx] 295 Jul 1995 The Captain of the Polestar, by A. Conan Doyle #5 [polstxxx.xxx] 294 Jul 1995 Paul Prescott's Charge by Horatio Alger Jr[Alger1][prescxxx.xxx] 293 Jul 1995 Beauty and The Beast, Etc., by Bayard Taylor [bbetcxxx.xxx] 292 Jul 1995 The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame [Grahame #3] [gldnaxxx.xxx] 291 Jul 1995 The Stark Munro Letters, by Arthur Conan Doyle #4 [strkmxxx.xxx] 290 Jul 1995 The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame [#2] [wwillxxx.xxx] 289 Jul 1995 The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell [chourxxx.xxx] 288 Jun 1995 Remember the Alamo, by Amelia E. Barr [alamoxxx.xxx] 287 Jun 1995 Laddie, by Gene Stratton Porter [Porter #3] [laddixxx.xxx] 286 Jun 1995 The Lost Continent, by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne [lostcxxx.xxx] 285 Jun 1995 House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton [Wharton #4] [hmirtxxx.xxx] 284 Jun 1995 The Reef, by Edith Wharton [Wharton #3] [treefxxx.xxx] 283 Jun 1995 Eothen, by A. W. Kinglake [eothnxxx.xxx] 282 Jun 1995 Father Damien, Robert Louis Stevenson [RLS #5] [frdamxxx.xxx] 281 Jun 1995 Records of a Family of Engineers, R. L. Stevenson [rfengxxx.xxx] 280 Jun 1995 Trinity Atomic Bomb Test Site Photographs [3trntxxx.zip] 279 Jun 1995 Trinity Atomic Bomb by White Sands Missle Range [2trntxxx.xxx] 278 Jun 1995 Trinity Atomic Bomb by the National Atomic Museum [1trntxxx.xxx] 277 Jun 1995 Franz Haydn's 104th Symphony [1794-5] [MIDI #2] [fh104sxx.xxx] 276C Jun 1995 The Augsburg Confession, 465th Anniversary Edition[augsbxxx.xxx] 275 Jun 1995 Martin Luther's 95 Theses, In English and Latin[1][the95xxx.xxx] 274 [Language: Latin] Jun 1995 The Smalcald Articles, by Martin Luther [smcalxxx.xxx] 273 Jun 1995 An Open Letter on Translating by Martin Luther [ltranxxx.xxx] 272 May 1995 Black Beauty by Anna Sewell [English Quaker c1850][bbeauxxx.xxx] 271 * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet??? With 15,247 eBooks online as of February 02, 2005 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$1.05 from each book. 1% of the world population is 64,112,028 x 15,247 x $1.05 = $1+ trillion With 15,247 eBooks online as of February 26, 2005 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.66 from each book, This "cost" is down from about $.89 when we had 11,219 eBooks a year ago. 100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population! At 15,247 eBooks in 33 Years and 07.00 Months We Averaged ~454 Per Year 37.8 Per Month 1.24 Per Day At 291 eBooks Done In The 28 Days Of 2005 We Averaged 10.4 Per Day 73 Per Week 291 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 5th was the first Wednesday of 2005, and thus ended PG's production year of 2004 and began the production year of 2005 at noon. This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week. *** *Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] SHAKEOUT IN CONSUMER ELECTRONICS FORECAST Experts are predicting a major shakeout in the consumer electronics industry, similar to the one computer makers endured two decades ago. Hordes of upstart rivals, plummeting prices and a host of new technologies are pummeling profits at industry stalwarts such as Sony, Pioneer and Philips Electronics. "We're seeing price depreciation that would have been unimaginable in the past," says Sony chief strategy officer Katsumi Ihara. "What's behind it is that with the switch to digital components, anyone can make them and there aren't compelling ways to distinguish one's products." In an effort to cope with the onslaught of mass look-alikes, the big electronic makers have scrambled to control the few key components that still yield reasonable profit margins, such as flat-panel displays. That, in turn, has led to a debilitating supply glut, with LCD prices falling 40% since last summer. The result has been a refocusing on the part of Philips and Thomson SA of France, which are now placing more emphasis on medical equipment and broadcasting gear, respectively. Meanwhile, Sony and Samsung are finding new life in cooperative ventures, teaming up to build the world's largest LCD panel factory. Hitachi, Toshiba and Matsushita are following suit, with an LCD plant that will open next year. The bottom line will be good for consumers, however, as electronics manufacturers struggle to churn out innovative products at ever-lower prices. (Wall Street Journal 27 Jan 2005) <http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110676809779336933,00.html> (sub req'd) REPORT URGES DEGREE PROGRAMS FOR ONLINE EDUCATION A new report from the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness identifies degree programs as the single largest factor that determines whether a distance education program is successful. In preparing the report, "Achieving Success in Internet-Supported Learning in Higher Education," the group conducted a survey of 21 distance education programs it deemed successful. Among those schools, 89 percent offered online degrees rather than just online courses. "It's easier to measure the progress at a programmatic level," according to the report's author, Rob Abel, president of the alliance. "The programmatic approach also gets institutions thinking about student-support services," Abel continued. Among the institutions profiled in the study is the University of Florida, which currently has more than 6,000 students enrolled in distance education programs. According to William H. Riffee, associate provost for distance, continuing, and executive education at the university, the program was a response to growing numbers of students who wanted degrees from the university, which could not handle them all. Riffee attributes his school's success to its having scaled the program effectively. The report also identified the for-profit institution Westwood College as successful. Shaun McAlmont, president of Westwood College Online, credits some of the success to the agility of the for-profit educational industry, compared to traditional higher education, which he said is slow to change. Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 February 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i22/22a03101.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

SUN MOVES SOLARIS TO OPEN SOURCE Sun Microsystems has announced it will make its Solaris 10 operating system available as an open source product. Sun has lost ground to companies including Dell and HP that increasingly offer Linux-based products. Changing consumer sentiment regarding proprietary systems has left Sun defending its products, and the company's latest move is designed to persuade developers to once again consider Sun's technology. The open source Solaris will be available free of charge, and developers will be able to make changes to the operating system to improve it as they see fit. According to John Loiacono, executive vice president for software at Sun, the goal is to get more developers using Solaris, thereby increasing opportunities for Sun to sell its other products and hardware. The company also announced it would modify its stance on intellectual property and allow free use of 1,600 of the patents it holds on the Solaris operating system. New York Times, 26 January 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/technology/26sun.html MICROSOFT TO LIMIT DOWNLOADS TO LEGAL SOFTWARE OWNERS Microsoft will soon begin requiring users to employ a program called Windows Genuine Advantage before downloading software patches or updates. The program verifies that the computer requesting the download is running a legitimate copy of Windows software rather than a pirated or counterfeit version. Initially, the requirement will apply to users in China, Norway, and the Czech Republic, but it will include all users by the middle of the year. Users will still be able to receive software updates and patches using the Automatic Updates feature. The program is part of Microsoft's three-pronged approach to limiting software piracy: educating users, designing products that discourage illegal copying, and legal enforcement. In addition to allowing downloads, the program will also offer users discounts on Microsoft products and services. Analysts noted that although the obvious benefit of the program is to Microsoft by way of decreasing the incidence of software piracy, users stand to benefit as well. Ensuring that a computer is running a legitimate version of an operating system shields that computer from bugs and glitches associated with pirated software, while guaranteeing that patches and upgrades will work properly. CNET, 25 January 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5550205.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 *** *HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA First Amendment On The Decline A University of Connecticut study sponored by the Knight Foundation reports from their massive study of 112,003 students 7,889 teachers and 327 school principals: 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" before publishing. 13% had no opinion, leaving 51% for a free press. 32% say the press has "too much" freedom. 10% say the press has too little freedom. 37% say the amount of press freedom is just right. 75% thought flag burning was illegal. *STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK We are the enemies of democracy, and all those who promote democracy. We believe in the will of God. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi * Subject: Reaction to Harvard's president Summers' comments about women in science This reminds me of the famous Dr. Clark (Harvard also) comments from around the 1850's. Education was bad for women because studying took necessary nutrients away from the ovaries and sent them to the brain. His proof: educated women had fewer children. At least the distribution of eBooks is done in a manner that is not based on color, creed, gender, religion, etc. However, those of us in areas in which the vast majority not only have computers but also have Internet access, and even over half have high speed Internet access, must take some time to consider that most of the world has no access at all to computers or the Internet. Nearly half the people in the world have never been part of a plain, non-emergency phone call. *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK There will be a race in May to see which happens first: Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith or The resumption of the Space Shuttle flights *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK The single greatest cause of personal bankruptcy in the US: Unpaid medical bills [Is there any other country in which this is the case? * We don't usually associate smog advisories with the middle of winter, but there is just such an "air quality alert" [to put it in NewSpeak] for a handful of counties surrounding Terra Haute, Indiana, and apparently a few more in northern Indiana. [Terra Haute is south of Indianapolis, not far from Illinois.] * This year, for the first time the photographic industry will be predominantly digital as opposed to film. * For the last year we have been reporting on China's growth, and once mentioned [here or elsewhere] that China was buying up all the scrap metal available in the entire world. This struck close to home yesterday, as 30 salaried employees came to work to find they had no jobs as a result of there being not enough scrap metal here in the Heartland to keep them working. * Most of you have probably seen something like this: "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south 8 Africans 52 would be female 48 would be male 70 would be non-white 30 would be white 70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States 80 would live in substandard housing 70 would be unable to read 50 would suffer from malnutrition 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education 1 would own a computer I 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. *** *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. 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