The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter December 4, 2003
eBooks Readable By Both Humans and Computers For Since 1971
Part 2
In this week's Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter:
1) Editorial
2) News and Comment
3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
4) Mailing list information
Editorial
Hello,
Hey! Look, it's a desk! Wow! And I thought my computer was balanced on
a big pile of paper. I see someone's tided up too, oh, and are those
clean mugs. Gosh, even the strange looking thing in the fridge that we
had forgotten about has gone. Oh well, there goes the mold growing
experiment. Isn't it amazing what having someone else around can do
for the place.
Well, it is nice to be back after two weeks away, not that I actually
got to go anywhere (Boo!). I have been looking at a few newsletter
related things though, and hopefully, you will notice a few
improvements. Not least of which will be my nice new, never used (no
surprise there) spellchecker! I was looking through some old
newsletters to sort out some features for the website, and I think I
probably have the most forgiving audience ever. There are so many
spelling mistakes, and almost no-one corrects me. I think I could
probably count the emails on one finger in fact. I have to admit to some
surprise at this given the way almost every person in PG I have
contact with leaps in with corrections to mine, and indeed, everyone
elses mistakes at any given opportunity. I look forward to a rapid
improvement in my spelling starting roundabout now.
Happy reading,
Alice
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2) News and Comment
A Free Public Discussion at the Berkeley Public Library
Thursday December 11 2003 7:00 pm
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Project Gutenberg now has over 10,000 eBooks online at gutenberg.net
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Newletter Changes and Website Changes
Following my two weeks leave, where I seem to have done even more work
than normal, you should notice a few changes around the place to
improve our service. One of them you won't notice unless I tell you
and that is the automation of our email newsletters. Before almost everything
on the newsletter was done by a human, now hopefully only the article
writing will be (although one of our correspondents has asked for an
article writing machine in their Christmas present list), this means
that you should get your newsletter at the same time each week. What
thia should also mean is that as we will have more time to spend on
them, the article writing quality should be more consistent.
The other change is to the newsletter website, which while still not
quite there, has filled out dramatically over the last few days. Every
feature the newsletter has carried during my editorship is now up
there, along with the reviews and other articles of interest. I hope
to get the last few bells and whistles sorted during this week so it's
all bright and shiny for December 10th.
Alice
Other news items this week
PG gains a new mirror site.
Welcome to our newest mirror: http://www.sakoman.net/gutenberg
Located in San Jose, California.
Thanks to Steve Sakoman.
Distributed Proofreaders Update
Here's a first for the DP segment of the newsletter; a dispatch from a
roaming columnist who has been off-site for about ten days now. That's
right, forget what you saw on CNN, I have not retired, just at large
in the low tech world for a while. I was getting a little curious
whether members of my family would still recognize me after being away
on location for so long. For the past week the heaviest reading I have
taken on are bedtime stories--and no, I have not caught myself
watching for typos.
The Crew I keep company with for now is very small, just the three of us, and
the two others are in bed well before Midnight. Yet in the quiet hours
as I watch them dreaming, my thoughts return to another family who
continues to hold my devotion more than I would have imagined before
being away so long. Like many at DP, this year has found me logging on
to the site more often than I check the news or weather. We joke about
this G-force that pulls us back to pgdp.net from time to time in the
forums. The regulars know there is something solid and lasting that
answers to this strong magnetism, the fulcrum of which lies just next
to the heart.
We produce e-texts at DP, this is the justification of why we come
back. It is not, however, the 'what' which keeps us here over the
months and in some cases years. As much as we return to work on book
projects we return for each other. We are drawn back to spend time and
interact with people from across the world who have grown to mean more
to us than we ever seem to know how to express.
We call this and other group activities on-line a 'community.' On the
whole this may be appropriate, but at the center of this
community--and the center does drive DP--the word community is no
longer sufficient. It is perhaps time to recognize that we are not
alone in our perceptions and values of what DP is to each of us on a
personal level. The most appropriate word to encompass the daily crowd
at DP is 'family.' Now, feel free to write me with alternatives or
voice vibrant disagreement, for I am only sharing what has become
clear to me after some time away from the site.
I do not set up a distinction here between DP and PG. My experience
over the past year is more closely involved with DP, so it is upon
this knowledge that I speak. It is my belief that those who have been
closely involved with PG over the years know exactly what I am talking
about.
December not only closes the circle on the year, it brings the
Holidays back to us. Like most productions the wheels of progress at
PG and DP will slow down a little as many of us spend time with family
and friends. Do me, and perhaps yourself, a small favor after the
off-line activities of the month draw your attentions away from day to
day interaction with the site. When you recall these words and this
request take a little time to explore what it is within yourself that
is yearning to return to DP.
If you want to share what you find, write, I am very interested in
what you discover. The best use of this self questioning is your own
understanding of what you value in life. It is always valuable to us
to recognize what we spend our time and pay our attention to each
day. This can be very revealing in understanding what is most
important to us as individuals. It has been so for me. Life will
always surprise you and often with the playful smile that children
know how to appreciate best.
In closing, I will only share with you a recent experience, you make
of it what you will. My own views on existence explain why it is
included here at all. I am sitting on a plane, not the plane I was
supposed to be on, nor the one after that, but the one fate would have
me on and in the seat that only a smiling trickster god would choose
for me.
It was a long flight and I had not slept for a day or two, so this I
did within minutes of take-off. Half way through to our destination I
awoke and after my thoughts cleared I noticed the woman seated next to
me was reading a printed out text, stapled together. There were
highlighted paragraphs and notes all up and down the borders. In my
groggy state of mind I assumed it was a screenplay and asked, for the
sake of the comfort of the next three hours, if she had written this.
"Oh no!" she said... "If only I had! ... It is one of my favorite
books of all time; The Colour of Life by Alice Meynell. I read it as a
teenager and then lost the book and never thought to find it again."
I said, "Yes...it is a great book, although it has been years since I
remember reading it." To which she replied with the question: "Do you
go on the Internet?" When I responded in the affirmative, she then
cleared the last smoke of sleep out of my mind with: "Have you ever
heard of Project Gutenberg? They gave me this for free and I printed
it out to take with me on my trip. It is so wonderful!"
As I write this in the quiet night hours I can hear those words again,
so clearly, and I have to agree, It is indeed wonderful! But then
you already knew that or you would not be reading this.
All the best in the world for you this week!
Thierry Alberto
Radio Gutenberg Update
http://www.radio-gutenberg.org
channel 1 - Sherlock Holmes "The Sign of Four"
channel 2 - Robert Sheckley's "Bad Medicine"
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Jon and I are working on a new service for Project Gutenberg
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for it.
Mike E
Improved Service
In a bid to make the newsletter more helpful to readers who may be
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the changed listing is given below. If you would like either a daily
or weekly version of this list please email news@pglaf.org, and state
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{Note to the unwary: this is an example.}
34 NEW ETEXTS FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG US
A Complete Grammar of Esperanto, by Ivy Kellerman Mar 2005[esperxxx.xxx]7787
The Female Gamester, by Gorges Edmond Howard Apr 2005[fmgstxxx.xxx]7840
[Subtitle: A Tragedy]
A Primary Reader, by E. Louise Smythe Apr 2005[preadxxx.xxx]7841
[Also posted: illustrated HTML, zipped only - pread10h.zip]
The Rise of Iskander, by Benjamin Disraeli Apr 2005[?riskxxx.xxx]7842
[7-bit version with non-accented characters in 7risk10.txt and 7risk10.zip]
[8-bit version with accented characters in 8risk10.txt and 8risk10.zip]
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3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
Project Gutenberg newsletter Cookery Club
We hope everyone enjoyed last week's recipes. I tried Potatoes and
Cheese. I had to cook it longer than recommended, but when it was done
it was quite good. This week we are featuring Simple Italian
Cookery, by Antonia Isola, pen name of Mabel Earl McGinnis. (I suppose
she thought it would be more convincing if the author's name was also
Italian.) This is an interesting collection recipes published in
1912. It's a bit easier to use than The Belgian Cook-Book, because it
follows a standard "modern" recipe format--a list of ingredients with
exact measurements, and suggested cooking times. I was interested to
see that a number of recipes suggest using canned
vegetables. Macaroni, spaghetti, and vermicelli recipes are available,
some familiar-sounding (e.g., Macaroni with Butter and Cheese), some
not so much (e.g., Ravioli with Brains). The distressing tendency of
19th and early 20th century cookbooks to dwell on brains, hearts,
etc., is, of course, carried on in this book. Ham fat seems to be used
as often as olive oil. This week's menu is not very balanced; perhaps
you should think of it more as a buffet; just take a little of each
dish, or you'll get full too soon.
SALAD "DEL PREVOSTO"
Boil in their skins three good-sized potatoes, peel them and slice
them, then put them into a salad bowl, and pour over them one-half a
glass of white wine. Do this about two or three hours before they are
wanted, so the potatoes will have time thoroughly to absorb the
wine. From time to time mix them with a fork and spoon to let the wine
permeate. A few minutes before the meal make a good French salad
dressing, add some pickled peppers cut up, some capers, and some
chopped-up parsley, pour on the French dressing, mix up well, and
serve.
MACARONI "ALLA SAN GIOVANNELLO"
While three-quarters of a pound of macaroni are boiling in salted
water prepare the following: Chop up fine two ounces of ham fat with a
little parsley. Peel six medium-sized tomatoes, cut them open, remove
the seeds, and any hard or unripe parts, and put them on one
side. Take a frying-pan and put into it one scant tablespoon of butter
and the chopped ham fat. When the grease is colored put in the sliced
tomatoes with salt and pepper. When the tomatoes are cooked and begin
to sputter put the macaroni into the pan with them, mix well, add
grated Parmesan cheese, and serve.
RICE WITH BUTTER AND CHEESE (_Riso in Bianco_) Take one-half cup of
rice. Boil in salted water. After twenty minutes of boiling take off
the fire and drain. Then put the rice back into a saucepan with three
tablespoons of grated cheese (Parmesan) and three tablespoons of
butter. Mix well and serve as an entree, or around a plate of meat.
TOMATOES WITH EGGS Choose round tomatoes of about equal size and peel
them. Cut off their tops, take out their insides, and drop a raw egg
into each, replacing the top as cover. Put the tomatoes in a
baking-dish and bake for about ten minutes, until the eggs are
set. Serve up in the baking-dish very hot, with Bechamel sauce (see
Sauces, page 29), or some brown gravy.
CHESTNUTS "ALLA LUCIFERO" Take forty good chestnuts and roast them
over a slow fire. Do not allow them to become dried up or
colored. Remove the shells carefully, put them in a bowl, and pour
over them one-half a glass of rum and two or three tablespoons of
powdered sugar. Set fire to the rum and baste the chestnuts constantly
as long as the rum will burn, turning the chestnuts about so they will
absorb the rum and become colored.
Tonya Allen
Extra to this weeks cookery club
We received a note here this week about our starting the cookery
club. It was pointed out that we were perhaps, trying to achieve
something that is not possible, i.e. the recreation of dishes whose
recipes were published in some cases over 100 years ago, when tastes
and ingredients were completely different from today's instant tv
dinners. Indeed, the way that people cooked and ate their food has
changed radically over the past one hundred years or so. So whilst, we
accept that perhaps, we cannot recreate the tastes and smells exactly
as say my great-grandparents would have experienced them, what we can
do is estabilish whether some of our 'lost' cookery books are still
relevant and we can perhaps also begin to understand why some books
are still popular and regular bestsellers over one hundred years since
their first publication.
Alice
No quiz this week, so time to do a little revising.
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pgweekly_2003_12_03_part_2.txt
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