[gmonthly] Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter

Michael S. Hart hart at pglaf.org
Thu Jan 21 09:28:15 PST 2010


Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter


REMINDER:  We still need a probate lawyer!!!

A famous author wants to will us his entire works!!!



The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Jan. 21, 2010

eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971


35 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring
on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011]

Leaving 2 years 11 months, 11 1/3 seasons or 35 months.

Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions,
such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021],
and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the
same time.



HEADLINE NEWS



BIG TROUBLE IN TERABYTEVILLE!


BIG PORTABLE POCKET USB DRIVE RECALL!


As I mentioned last month, the new pocket USB terabytes
came out last month, but apparently there has been some
huge problem with this, and I not only have not managed
to BUY one of these, I haven't even managed to SEE one!

I did get in touch with the Western Digital techies and
they did admit, after a little delay, that the drive is
no longer for sale, and I'm hardly sure it ever ways on
more than a very few days.

This would explain why ALL of the 89 hits I got just in
the week before had vanished when I wrote about this.

The results:

Not only is the $200 terabyte pocket USB drive not out,
but apparently this has also driven up the price of the
other larger pocket drives, though apparently not quite
all of them, as I have seen the smaller ones at the old
prices still on the shelf.  I'm not going to name names
on places to buy, but the more upscale places are quick
to push their prices up and slow to bring them down and
the cheaper places seem to be more consistent on these.



APPLE SEEMS READY TO ANNOUNCE EREADER/TABLET


If you are an Apple watcher you know that they are very
secretive about their announcements, yet this time they
have made it pretty obvious that something is coming in
the next week and should be on the market in March.

Invitations have gone out for a major press conference,
and Apple seems to have ordered massive quanties of the
parts required to build such a gizmo.

However, unless it really has outrageous bells/whistles
on the order of iPods and iPhones it probably won't see
the same kind of reception, as Apple does not sell what
we call "computers" for under $999, and I'm betting the
price will be a factor.  However, the iPhone trendiness
overcame this hurdle when they were $600 and required a
contract commitment, to boot, so you never know.




In Our Own News Bin


Project Gutenberg should be releasing the 26,00th eBook
in English about the time you are reading this:

http://www.gutenberg.org



FARTHER INTO THE FUTURE


As predicted:  a year from now, in 2011, New York Times
will start charging a flat fee to anyone who reads more
than a minimum number of articles at nytimes.com

Watch out as the entire "Information Age" becomes quite
literally "The New Digital Divide" as everything costs,
as much as the market will bear.

As always with such things, no details were available--
not the price, not the minimal free number, or and kind
of guarantee that either number will not change sooner,
rather than later, after it all begins.




U.S. COPYRIGHT EXTENSIONS


Can anything be done to stop the next U.S. extension?

or

If not stop them, at least publicize them a little?


Suggestions are more than welcome.


I should add that this is probably a losing battle even
if it looks as if we are winning.

Here's why:

When the last Australian Copyright Act was discussed in
Parliament, they passed a resolution stating they would
NOT extend copyrights.

Really.

However, just three years later, under economic warfare
from, shall we just say, outside sources, they crumbled
to the pressure and gave in.


The Canadian Parliament is currently in that position--
and while some tell me they have enough signatures from
those against any extensions, I will bet you lunch that
they, too, crumble before it is over.

I would gladly lose every one of those wagers!!!



Further Information


As you may already know, any time the copyrights in the
characters Winnie the Pooh [1926], or The Mouse [1928],
start coming close to expiration The U.S. Congress will
be sure to start a very quiet frenzy of copyright bills
that are designed to go into effect before anything can
happen to those two copyrights.

As I understand it, Disney(R) made a huge lobby effort,
successful, to create the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act; paid
as a result an additional $200 million for the right to
another 20 years of Winnie the Pooh, and still made the
fabled laughing trip to the bank as a result, since the
effective date of 1978.

As a result I have to imagine their sales of The Mouse,
Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, etc., must have been predicted
to be so terribly large as to devour Avatar's gross.

Given that next bill passed right in the middle of what
must have been the busiest day in Congress for the last
few decades, the impeachment of President Clinton, this
means we should expect something of equal secrecy quite
soon, as the current copyright extension runs out 2018.

Usually they would make an effort to pass the new one a
session or two early, such as in 2016, but given that a
snag or two has hit before, we should probably look out
starting in 2015, though it will be hard to see.

Why?

Even during the election just before the last extension
I went to ask televised press conference questions on a
new U.S. Copyright Act I had heard about, but candidate
responses were uniform. . ."I know nothing."

I would have to expect that even if the big anchors ask
the same question in 2015 they will get that answer.

Or non-answer.

>From what I have heard there is an ever larger movement
to keep everything copyrighted permanently, and to make
all media as pay-per-view as possible, to the points of
making all broadcast television pay-per-view on a first
viewing premise [except public stations].

We are very likely to see a dissolving out boundaries--
cable products showing up on network television and the
opposite direction as well.

What else CAN we expect when Comcast cable has been the
allowed buyer of NBC?

If you think programming won't leak over:

Consider what happened when Disney took over ABC.

Not only did Disney flood ABC with their own programmed
output, but they killed off the best of all cartoons.

Anyone remember Reboot?


I can put you in touch with many copyright experts, and
I fear that all of them underestimate the power working
to make copyright permanent, in spite of the fact words
"limited time" are the U.s. Constitution's description.

However, the U.s. Supreme Court decided that limited is
really unlimited in "Eldred v Ashcroft."



Older News


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Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!


FLASH RAM


I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.

The ideal piece around which to center this collection is
one of the 8 megabyte USBs.

The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the
Poqet computer, etc.

The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems
and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular
in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors
resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles.

We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash,"
for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample
of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under.

Thank you, Mate!



POWERPOINT


We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.

One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.





Additional Newsletter Services


In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and
totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.

These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at

http://www.gutenberg.cc

Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.



The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report
[As of about noon Central Daylight Time]



Various totals from the ~30,000 at

http://www.gutenberg.org

and our other Project Gutenberg Sites

Week up to the 21st:

      day       | cnt
----------------+-----
 Thu 2010-01-14 |   8
 Fri 2010-01-15 |  13
 Sat 2010-01-16 |  16
 Sun 2010-01-17 |   8
 Mon 2010-01-18 |  12
 Tue 2010-01-19 |   5
 Wed 2010-01-20 |  11


Previous Month


      day       | cnt
----------------+-----
 Mon 2009-12-14 |  11
 Tue 2009-12-15 |   4
 Wed 2009-12-16 |   4
 Thu 2009-12-17 |  10
 Fri 2009-12-18 |   7
 Sat 2009-12-19 |   7
 Sun 2009-12-20 |   9


Previous month:


      day       | cnt
----------------+-----
 Sat 2009-11-14 |   6
 Sun 2009-11-15 |   4
 Mon 2009-11-16 |   6
 Tue 2009-11-17 |   9
 Wed 2009-11-18 |   3
 Thu 2009-11-19 |   6
 Fri 2009-11-20 |   5


Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!


///


Here are the current language totals
for languages with 200 or more eBooks.

Grand total for today: 30935

25995   English en
1547    French  fr
628     German  de
518     Finnish fi
459     Dutch   nl
405     Chinese zh
391     Portuguese      pt
274     Spanish es
230     Italian it


Compared to last month:


Grand total

25757   English en
1520    French  fr
618     German  de
515     Finnish fi
453     Dutch   nl
405     Chinese zh
376     Portuguese      pt
270     Spanish es
220     Italian it



Compared to previous month's:


Grand total for today: 30399

25587   English en
1498    French  fr
614     German  de
515     Finnish fi
451     Dutch   nl
404     Chinese zh
371     Portuguese      pt
268     Spanish es
218     Italian it



Previous increases:

+214
+205
+254
+281
+294
+287


All Reported Languges


Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe


Thanks to Greg Newby!


///


And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide

30,935 up from 30,613   up   322  PG General Automated Count
 1,834 up from  1,830   up     4  PG of Australia
   680 up from    664   up    16  PG of Europe
 2,008   --     2,008   up     0  PG PrePrints, Reserved [42?]
   462 up from    436   up    26  PG of Canada
                                  Posted #400 on October 10
                                  July: 14 (Title 349 to 362)
                                  August: 16 (Titles 363 to 378)
                                  September: 17 (Titles 379 to 395)
                                  October: 13 (Titles 396 to 408)
                                  November: 9 [up to November 21]
                                  December: 19[up to December 21]
======
35,919 up from 35,551   up   368



Last month:

35,551   up   240  [Not including Canada's illustrations]


35,311   up   235  [Including correcting above estimate by 2]



Note  There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here
that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg.

Note  PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.


///

Here is how we ended 2009



      day       | cnt
----------------+-----
 Wed 2009-12-30 |   9
 Thu 2009-12-31 |  12
 Fri 2010-01-01 |   6
 Sat 2010-01-02 |  10
 Sun 2010-01-03 |   2
 Mon 2010-01-04 |  21
 Tue 2010-01-05 |   5

Weekly Total       65



Grand total for today: 30761  from automated in house counter

25866   English en
1531    French  fr
625     German  de
517     Finnish fi
455     Dutch   nl
405     Chinese zh
384     Portuguese      pt
270     Spanish es
225     Italian it
etc.



30,761  Up 3,145  From  27,616  PG General Automated Count
 1,830  Up   104  From   1,726  Project Gutenberg of Australia
   675  Up   121  From     554  Project Gutenberg of Europe
   468  Up   243  From     225  Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated]
 2,008  DN   423  From   2,431   PrePrints [Subtracted 307 Chinese eBooks]
======   ======
35,742  Up 3,190  From  32,552   Grand Total [Counting subtractions]


  9.825 eBooks Per Day
 68.773 eBooks Per Week
297.850 eBooks Per Month




///


Here is how we ended 2008



27,616   PG General Automated Count
 1,726   Project Gutenberg of Australia
   554   Project Gutenberg of Europe
   225   Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated]
         [202 up to December, no current report]
 2,431   PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111]
======   ======
32,552   Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints]




Here is how we ended 2007

The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles.


The most number of books posted...
 ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December
 ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May)
 ...in one month was 477 in November

We averaged
338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year]
 78 per week
 11.13 per day

99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us almost

to the 2,000 mark.


Here is a small selection of project milestones;

TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about
the number of books in the average U.S. public library
  32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints]
                     [And presuming 3 after official count]
  32,000 on Calculating
  31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints]
  30,000 on 20081021
  29,500 on 20080919
  29,000 ~~ Calculating
  28,500 ~~ Calculating
  28,000 ~~ 20080516
  27,500 on 20080405
  27,000 ~~ 20080229
  26,500 on 20080126
  26,000 on 20071224
  25,000 on 20071012
  24,000 on 20070710
  23,000 on 20070415

PG-AU
  1,700 on 20081010
  1,600 on 20080208
  1,500 on 20070407

PG Canada
  175 on 20080930
  100 on 20080325
  110 on 20080417

///


Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year!


Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg







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