PGWeekly_December_10.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, December 10, 2003*
*****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and Computers Since July 4, 1971******
Our Newsletter Archive is available at gutenberg.net/newsletter/index.html
***
In this issue of the Project Gutenberg Weekly newsletter:
- Introduction: eBook Milestones; Project Gutenberg on TechTV
- Project Gutenberg DVD
- Requests For Assistance, including Portuguese eBooks
- Progress Report
- Flashback
- Continuing Requests For Assistance
- Making Donations
- Access To The Collection
- Information About Mirror Sites
- Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet?
- Weekly eBook update (See Part 3 for complete listings):
Updates/corrections in separate section
52 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
5 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
- Headline News from Newsscan and Edupage
- Information about mailing lists
***
eBook Milestones
Today Is The 10th Anniversary Of The 100th Project Gutenberg eBook
[The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare: Thanks World Library!]
[And To The Half Dozen Volunteers Who Helped Me Pull The All Nighter
Until The End of December 10, 1993 in the Hawaiian Time Zone!!!]
Project Gutenberg of Australia Passes The 300 eBook Mark!!!
We're ~7+% Of The Way From 10,000 To 20,000!!!
10,695 eBooks As Of Today!!!
We're ~1/14 Of The Way From 10,000 to 20,000!!!
We've Done Almost 4,000 eBooks This Year!
A Month From Now We Should Reach A Grand Total of 11,000!!!
Interested in Portuguese eBooks? See Email Address Below!
***
Project Gutenberg On TechTV
As part of the 10th Anniversary commemoration activities this week,
Michael Hart will be taping a segment for The Screen Savers show on
TechTV, scheduled to be broadcast next Monday, December 15th. This
will also feature the Project Gutenberg DVD and CD. Check local
listings or the TechTV website for exact day and times.
!!!Today Is The Official Release Of PG's "10K Special" DVD!!!
DOWNLOADING IMAGES FOR THE PROJECT GUTENBERG DVD AND CD
Note: We'll be showing these on TechTV's "Screensavers" which
should air next Monday, December 16.
This DVD image contains about 9400 of the first 10,000 eBooks.
You can download the Project Gutenberg DVD image at the following:
ftp://underdog.arsc.alaska.edu/images/pgdvd.iso
ftp://ftp.archive.org/pub/etext/cdimages/pgdvd.iso
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/cdimages/pgdvd.iso
Details:
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/cdimages/pgdvd.iso
ftp://beryl.ils.unc.edu/pub/pgdvd.iso
(location: North Carolina. Very fast network connection)
Also online on one of Greg's research servers:
ftp://underdog.arsc.alaska.edu/images/pgdvd.iso
rsync -rlHtSv ftp@underdog.arsc.alaska.edu::images . (for rsync)
(location: Alaska. Pretty fast network connection)
uploading to archive.org, too. Once it's there:
ftp://ftp.archive.org/pub/etext/cdimages/pgdvd.iso
(location: San Francisco. Fast but saturated network connection)
The file size is 4139646976.
Unix "sum" is 51222 (but there are several "sum" versions out there).
MD5 sum is 59d8a193874349181122ff52e2e3e114
You can download the Project Gutenberg CD image at the following:
http://gutenberg.net/cdproject
The image is from August 2003, by Daniel Callahan.
This contains over 1/3 of the original 10,000 eBooks.
The most recent image is available as .ISO and .zip
(the .zip contains the ISO):
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/cdimages/PG2003-08.ISO
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/cdimages/PG2003-08.zip
PG2003-08.ISO MD5 sum: e448aaec6010fa03373d0f74dde5f36e size 711589888 bytes
PG2003-08.zip MD5 sum: 2bf96ee51d593169ee5b08202b41179d size 387828452 bytes
***
[The Newsletter is now being sent in three sections, so you can directly
go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments,
2. News, Notes & Queries, and 3. Weekly eBook Update Listing.]
This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
Over Our 32 23/53 Year History, We Have Now Averaged About 330 Ebooks/Yr
And This Year Averaged Over That Same New eBook Level. . .PER MONTH!!!!!
We Are Averaging About 353 Per Month This Year!!!
*** HOT Requests!!!
We've had some requests for something like the Distributed Proofreaders
to take up various kinds of books, varying by subject, and by language.
Anyone interested in doing something like this, please contact us.
"Michael S. Hart" <hart@pobox.com>
Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org>
We want to make it easier for you to volunteer for what interests you!
However you want to do books, we'll try to find a way to support you.
***
For all those Portuguese readers out there, we have a new volunteer that
offered to coordinate and help anyone that wants to work on Portuguese
eBooks for project gutenberg. His name is Joco Neves and you can get in
touch with him at gutenberg@silvaneves.org.
If you don't have a specific book to work on, take a look first at
Distributed Proofreaders <http://www.pgdp.net/>. There are three
Portuguese eBooks on the first round, one in the second and two in
post-processing. We have the National Library of Portugal as a source of
eBooks, so how many eBooks and which books we choose is up to us.
Sim, i da tua ajuda que precisamos!!!
***
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:
http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/images
***
New site for PDA readable eBooks - now open for testing:
http://mc.clintock.com/gutenberg/
The formats currently available are Plucker, iSilo, Doc, Rocket eBook,
and zTXT (as well as regular HTML). The etexts used are the ones on the
PG DVD image you released a few weeks ago, and they're stored in the
same directories, with the original archive names (e.g. ETEXT05/kafk10.zip).
***
Volunteers Needed For Some Harder-Than-Usual Reformatting
Please look at this URL, and see what we can use. We have permission
for all of them. Reformatting to plain text may be a challenge.
http://www.gallup.unm.edu/~smarandache/eBooks-otherformats.htm
http://www.gallup.unm.edu/~smarandache/eBooksLiterature.htm
*** Requests For Assistance ***
Music Project
Interested in music? Project Gutenberg's music project
(http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/music) is seeking people to
digitize musical scores. We also have a small budget to
work on publicity recruitment for our sheet music efforts.
Email Greg Newby <gbnewby AT pglaf.org> if you would like
more information.
***
Project Gutenberg DVD Needs Burners
So far we have access to a dozen DVD burners. If you have
a DVD burner or know someone with one, please email me
so we can plan how many DVD's we can make with all 10,000
Project Gutenberg eBooks on them when they are ready. We
can likely send you a box of CDs containing most of these
files early, and then a final update CD in November when
you would download the last month's/weeks' releases.
I have the first test 10K Special DVD here right now!!!
Nearly all of our first 10,000 eBooks, and multiple formats!
*** Project Gutenberg Is Seeking Legal Beagles ***
Project Gutenberg is seeking (volunteer) lawyers. We have
regular needs 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.
*** CONGRATULATIONS TO PROJECT GUTENBERG OF AUSTRALIA!!!
eBook #300 was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, less than
nine months since #200 was posted, and only 28 months since
#1.
*** PROGRESS REPORT
In the first 11.20 months of this year, we produced 3957 new eBooks.
It took us from 1971 to 2000 to produce our first 3,957 eBooks!
That's 49 WEEKS as Compared to ~31 Years!
57 New eBooks This Week
73 New eBooks Last Week
57 New eBooks This Month [December]
353 Average Per Month in 2003 <<<
203 Average Per Month in 2002 <<<
103 Average Per Month in 2001 <<<
3957 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
7538 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 35 Months!
10,695 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
6,519 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,176 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
304 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia!!!
* * * * * Project Gutenberg's Main URL is gutenberg.net * * * * * *
eBooks are posted throughout the week. You can even get daily lists.
***
FLASHBACK!!!
3952 New eBooks So Far in 2003
It took us 31 years for the first 3952 !
That's the 49 WEEKS of 2003 as Compared to ~31 YEARS!!!
Here Is A Sample Of What Books Were Being Done Around #3952
Apr 2003 Entire PG Edition of The French Immortals [IM#87][imewkxxx.xxx] 4000
Apr 2003 Entire An "Attic" Philosopher by Souvestre [IM#86][im86bxxx.xxx] 3999
Apr 2003 An "Attic" Philosopher by E. Souvestre, v3 [IM#85][im85bxxx.xxx] 3998
Apr 2003 An "Attic" Philosopher by E. Souvestre, v2 [IM#84][im84bxxx.xxx] 3997
Apr 2003 An "Attic" Philosopher by E. Souvestre, v1 [IM#83][im83bxxx.xxx] 3996
Apr 2003 The Entire Madame Chrysantheme by Loti [IM#82][im82bxxx.xxx] 3995
Apr 2003 Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti, v4 [IM#81][im81bxxx.xxx] 3994
Apr 2003 Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti, v3 [IM#80][im80bxxx.xxx] 3993
Apr 2003 Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti, v2 [IM#79][im79bxxx.xxx] 3992
Apr 2003 Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti, v1 [IM#78][im78bxxx.xxx] 3991
Apr 2003 The Entire Conscience by Hector Malot [IM#77][im77bxxx.xxx] 3990
Apr 2003 Conscience by Hector Malot, v4 [IM#76][im76bxxx.xxx] 3989
Apr 2003 Conscience by Hector Malot, v3 [IM#75][im75bxxx.xxx] 3988
Apr 2003 Conscience by Hector Malot, v2 [IM#74][im74bxxx.xxx] 3987
Apr 2003 Conscience by Hector Malot, v1 [IM#73][im73bxxx.xxx] 3986
Apr 2003 The Entire Gerfaut by Charles de Bernard [IM#72][im72bxxx.xxx] 3985
Apr 2003 Gerfaut by Charles de Bernard, v4 [IM#71][im71bxxx.xxx] 3984
Apr 2003 Gerfaut by Charles de Bernard, v3 [IM#70][im70bxxx.xxx] 3983
Apr 2003 Gerfaut by Charles de Bernard, v2 [IM#69][im69bxxx.xxx] 3982
Apr 2003 Gerfaut by Charles de Bernard, v1 [IM#68][im68bxxx.xxx] 3981
Apr 2003 The Entire Fromont and Risler, by Daudet [IM#67][im67bxxx.xxx] 3980
Apr 2003 Fromont and Risler by Alphonse Daudet, v4 [IM#66][im66bxxx.xxx] 3979
. . .
Apr 2003 Fromont and Risler by Alphonse Daudet, v1 [IM#63][im63bxxx.xxx] 3976
Apr 2003 Entire The Ink-Stain by Rene Bazin [IM#62][im62bxxx.xxx] 3975
Apr 2003 The Ink-Stain by Rene Bazin, v3 [IM#61][im61bxxx.xxx] 3974
. . .
Apr 2003 The Ink-Stain by Rene Bazin, v1 [IM#59][im59bxxx.xxx] 3972
Apr 2003 Entire Jacqueline by Bentzon (Mme. Blanc) [IM#58][im58bxxx.xxx] 3971
Apr 2003 Jacqueline by Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc), v3 [IM#57][im57bxxx.xxx] 3970
. . .
Apr 2003 Jacqueline by Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc), v1 [IM#55][im55bxxx.xxx] 3968
Apr 2003 Entire Cosmopolis by Paul Bourget [IM#54][im54bxxx.xxx] 3967
Apr 2003 Cosmopolis by Paul Bourget, v4 [IM#53][im53bxxx.xxx] 3966
Apr 2003 Cosmopolis by Paul Bourget, v3 [IM#52][im52bxxx.xxx] 3965
. . .
Apr 2003 Cosmopolis by Paul Bourget, v1 [IM#50][im50bxxx.xxx] 3963
Apr 2003 Entire Romance of Youth by Francois Coppee [IM#49][im49bxxx.xxx] 3962
Apr 2003 A Romance of Youth by Francois Coppee, v4 [IM#48][im48bxxx.xxx] 3961
. . .
Apr 2003 A Romance of Youth by Francois Coppee, v1 [IM#45][im45bxxx.xxx] 3958
Apr 2003 Entire L'Abbe Constantin by Ludovic Halevy [IM#44][im44bxxx.xxx] 3957
Apr 2003 L'Abbe Constantin by Ludovic Halevy, v3 [IM#43][im43bxxx.xxx] 3956
Apr 2003 L'Abbe Constantin by Ludovic Halevy, v2 [IM#42][im42bxxx.xxx] 3955
Apr 2003 L'Abbe Constantin by Ludovic Halevy, v1 [IM#41][im41bxxx.xxx] 3954
Apr 2003 The Entire Cinq Mars, by Alfred de Vigny [IM#40][im40bxxx.xxx] 3953
Apr 2003 Cinq Mars, by Alfred de Vigny, v6 [IM#39][im39bxxx.xxx] 3952
Apr 2003 Cinq Mars, by Alfred de Vigny, v5 [IM#38][im38bxxx.xxx] 3951
Apr 2003 Cinq Mars, by Alfred de Vigny, v4 [IM#37][im37bxxx.xxx] 3950
. . .
Apr 2003 Cinq Mars, by Alfred de Vigny, v1 [IM#34][im34bxxx.xxx] 3947
Apr 2003 Entire Monsieur de Camors by Oct. Feuillet [IM#33][im33bxxx.xxx] 3946
Apr 2003 Monsieur de Camors by Octave Feuillet, v3 [IM#32][im32bxxx.xxx] 3945
. . .
Apr 2003 Monsieur de Camors by Octave Feuillet, v1 [IM#30][im30bxxx.xxx] 3943
Apr 2003 Entire Child of a Century, Alfred de Musset[IM#29][im29bxxx.xxx] 3942
Apr 2003 Child of a Century, Alfred de Musset, v3 [IM#28][im28bxxx.xxx] 3941
. . .
Apr 2003 Child of a Century, Alfred de Musset, v1 [IM#26][im26bxxx.xxx] 3939
Apr 2003 Entire A Woodland Queen, by Andre Theuriet [IM#25][im25bxxx.xxx] 3938
Apr 2003 A Woodland Queen, by Andre Theuriet, v3 [IM#24][im24bxxx.xxx] 3937
. . .
Apr 2003 A Woodland Queen, by Andre Theuriet, v1 [IM#22][im22bxxx.xxx] 3935
Apr 2003 The Entire Zebiline by Phillipe de Masa [IM#21][im21bxxx.xxx] 3934
Apr 2003 Zebiline by Phillipe de Masa, v3 [IM#20][im20bxxx.xxx] 3933
. . .
Apr 2003 Zebiline by Phillipe de Masa, v1 [IM#18][im18bxxx.xxx] 3931
Apr 2003 The Entire Prince Zilah by Jules Claretie [IM#17][im17bxxx.xxx] 3930
Apr 2003 Prince Zilah, by Jules Claretie, v3 [IM#16][im16bxxx.xxx] 3929
. . .
Apr 2003 Prince Zilah, by Jules Claretie, v1 [IM#14][im14bxxx.xxx] 3927
Apr 2003 The Entire M, Mme and Bebe, by Gustave Droz[IM#13][im13bxxx.xxx] 3926
Apr 2003 Monsieur, Mme, and Bebe, by Gustave Droz v3[IM#12][im12bxxx.xxx] 3925
. . .
Apr 2003 Monsieur, Mme, and Bebe, by Gustave Droz v1[IM#10][im10bxxx.xxx] 3923
[Title of the above: Monsieur, Madame, and Bebe]
Apr 2003 Entire The Red Lily, by Anatole France [IM#09][im09bxxx.xxx] 3922
Apr 2003 The Red Lily, by Anatole France, v3 [IM#08][im08bxxx.xxx] 3921
. . .
Apr 2003 The Red Lily, by Anatole France, v1 [IM#06][im06bxxx.xxx] 3919
Apr 2003 The Entire Serge Panine, by Georges Ohnet [IM#05][im05bxxx.xxx] 3918
Apr 2003 Serge Panine, by Georges Ohnet, v4 [IM#04][im04bxxx.xxx] 3917
. . .
Apr 2003 Serge Panine, by Georges Ohnet, v1 [IM#01][im01bxxx.xxx] 3914
Apr 2003 Entire Confessions of J.J.Rousseau/Book 13 [JJ#13][jj13bxxx.xxx] 3913
. . .
Apr 2003 The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book 1 [JJ#01][jj01bxxx.xxx] 3901
[Author: Jean Jacques Rousseau]
Mar 2003 The Entire Court Memoirs of France Series [CM#63][cm63bxxx.xxx] 3900
***
Today Is Day #343 of 2003
This Completes Week #49
28 Days/04 Weeks To Go [We get 53 Wednesdays this year]
9300 Books To Go To #20,000 [18 months from 7 weeks ago]
We're hoping to do this in 80 to 100 weeks
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
Week #8 Of Our *SECOND* 10,000 eBooks
81 Weekly Average in 2003
47 Weekly Average in 2002
24 Weekly Average in 2001
39 Only 39 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list
[Used to be well over 100]
*** Continuing Requests For Assistance:
Project Gutenberg--Canada will be starting up soon.
Please let us know if you would like to volunteer!
Copyright in Canada is "Life +50" as in Australia,
and we have volunteers working on both of these.
We will also be seeking volunteers from others of
the "life +50" countries.
email: Diane Gratton <diane_xml@hotmail.com>
***
DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS NEEDS CONTENT, PROOFERS AND SCANNER TYPES
Please contact us at:
dphelp@pgdp.net
if you would like to know more about the Distributed Proofreaders.
Thanks to very good recent publicity, the Distributed Proofreading
project has greatly accelerated its pace. Please visit the site:
http://www.pgdp.net
for more information about how you can help a lot, by
simply proofreading just a few pages per day, or more.
If you have a book that has been scanned, but not yet run
through OCR (optical character recognition) or proofed,
and you would like the Distributed Proofreaders to work on it,
please email dphelp@pgdp.net and we will get things started.
Also, DP is seeking public domain books not already in the
Project Gutenberg collection. To see what is already online,
visit http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/GUTINDEX.ALL (a text file),
since the online database doesn't reflect recent additions.
Do you have Public Domain books your would like to see in the archive?
Can they be destructively scanned? If so send them to the Distributed
Proofreading Team! Please email dphelp@pgdp.net with your geographic
location. You will be given the address of the nearest high-speed scanner
(note that the high-speed scanner requires destruction of the book(s) which
will not be returned). Alternatively, you can send your books directly to:
Charles Franks
9030 W. Sahara Ave. #195
Las Vegas, NV 89117
Please make sure that any books you send are _not_ already in the archive
and please check them against David's "In Progress" list at:
http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html
to ensure no one is currently working on them. It would also be helpful if
you obtain copyright clearance before mailing the books, and send the 'OK'
lines to
dphelp@pgdp.net
Do you like to work on an entire book at once but don't have the time
or technology to do the scanning, OCR, and initial proofing yourself?
Distributed Proofreaders has the perfect solution! Just send us email
telling us that you are interested in post-processing and we will help
find a you project you would like to work on.
***
We Have Included Quick and Easy Ways to Donate. . .As Per Your Requests!
We Are Looking For Volunteers To Add eBooks In More Languages,
and in more formats, including music, artwork, movies, etc.
***
QUICK WAYS TO MAKE A DONATION TO PROJECT GUTENBERG
A. Send a check or money order to:
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
809 North 1500 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
USA
B. Donate by credit card online:
NetworkForGood:
http://www.guidestar.org/partners/networkforgood/donate.jsp?ein=64-6221541
or
PayPal to "donate@gutenberg.net":
http://www.paypal.com
/xclick/business=donate%40gutenberg.net&item_name=Donate+to+Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg's success is due to the hard work of thousands of
volunteers over more than 32 years. Your donations make it possible
to support these volunteers, and pay our few employees to continue the
creation of free electronic texts. We accept credit cards, checks and
transfers from any country, in any currency.
Donations are made to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
(PGLAF). PGLAF is approved as a charitable 501(c)(3) organization by
the US Internal Revenue Service, and has the Federal Employee Information
Number (EIN) 64-6221541.
For more information, including several other ways to donate, go to
http://promo.net/pg/donation.html or email donate@gutenberg.net
*** HOW TO GET EBOOKS FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG:
Please see Part 3 of this newsletter for a listing of our most recent
eBooks and for information on "Instant" Access, locating mirrors, etc.
Also, be sure to visit http://gutenberg.net where you can also learn
more about accessing the entire collection, including searching by title,
author, language and subject.
*** HAVE WE GIVEN AWAY A TRILLION BOOKS/DOLLARS YET???
Statistical Review
In the 49 weeks of this year, we have produced 3957 new eBooks.
It took us from 1971 to 2000 to produce our FIRST 3957 eBooks!!!
That's 49 WEEKS as Compared to ~31 YEARS!!!
With 10,700 eBooks online as of December 10, 2003 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.93 from each book,
for Project Gutenberg to have currently given away $1,000,000,000,000
[One Trillion Dollars] in books.
100,000,000 readers is only about 1.5% of the world's population!
This "cost" is down from about $1.53 when we had 6267 eBooks A Year Ago
Can you imagine 10,000 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???
At 10,700 eBooks in 32 Years and 5.20 Months We Averaged
330 Per Year [We do more per than that month these days!]
27.5 Per Month
.90 Per Day
At 3,957 eBooks Done In The 343 Days Of 2003 We Averaged
11.5 Per Day
80.7 Per Week
353.3 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 1st was
the first Wednesday of 2003, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2002 and began the production year of 2003 at noon.
This year there will be 53 Wednesdays, thus one extra week.
***Headline News***
[Michael Hart's Comments In Brackets]
From Newsscan:
[Another Way To Keep Anyone From Buying Their Pills For Lower Prices?]
BAR CODES ON DRUGS
Pfizer Inc. is now placing tiny versions of supermarket bar codes on blister
packs of Dilantin, Lipitor and other pills sold to hospitals, and Abbott
Laboratories is putting bar codes on injected drugs. The FDA will soon be
issuing new rules forcing all manufacturers to begin phasing in bar codes on
hospital-sold drugs, although hospitals won't be required to use the codes.
(AP/USA Today 8 Dec 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-08-bar-coded-drugs_x.htm
[Remember, You Heard It Here First, Before Now]
[AND. . .THEY ARE ADMITTING THAT DIGITAL REPLICATION IS FOR *THEM*. . .
BUT ALL THE WHILE THEY PASS LAWS THAT KEEP US FROM REPLICATING WHAT WAS
*LEGAL* TO COPY BEFORE ALL THE COPYRIGHT EXTENSIONS!!!]
THE NEW ECONOMY IS BACK -- BUT NOT THE JOBS
The latest economic indicators -- rising productivity, fewer jobs -- could
signal a vindication for all those IT managers who spent big bucks on
technology improvements in the last decade, says Fortune columnist David
Kirkpatrick: "We may be entering the second great technology boom. The
first one, of the late '90s, was a boom in expectations, which pushed up
stock valuations and investor enthusiasm in the belief that the new
technologies born of the Internet would fundamentally transform the
economy^E Contrary to what over-eager investors thought in the '90s, the
users of the technology, not the producers, will be the bigger
beneficiaries." Comparing today's corporate processes with those existing
the last time the U.S. emerged from a recession, there are striking
differences. Today, most large manufacturers have built a significant,
sophisticated enterprise resource planning (ERP) infrastructure to automate
the supply chain and provide real-time data on inventory and profits.
E-commerce is now routine -- both for manufacturing giants and for
consumers. Communication among workers both within corporations and between
companies is now automated via e-mail and Web portals, speeding the
implementation of corporate edicts and the fulfillment of business orders.
Meanwhile the casualty of all this efficiency has been jobs -- about 2
million eliminated in the last two years in the U.S. as companies
streamline processes and outsource functions to overseas workers. And
that's not likely to change, says Kirkpatrick, who warns, "To keep your job
in this new world, you'd better be doing something that benefits from a
digitized economy." (Fortune.com 4 Dec 2003)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/12/04/fortune.ff.real.boom/index.html
NEGOTIATORS DRAFT GLOBAL INTERNET GROUND RULES
Participants from 192 countries have succeeded in narrowing their
differences on the issue of how best to expand the Internet, but remain
undecided as to whether rich nations should foot the entire bill.
"Unfortunately, we didn't settle everything, but one has to be realistic.
We're probably at 98%," says Marc Furrer, the Swiss official who brokered
the negotiations prior to the start of the three-day World Summit on the
Information Society on Wednesday. More than 60 heads of state will attend
the U.N.-sponsored meeting and the hope has been to have draft agreements
prepared ahead of time for approval. African nations are advocating the
creation of a special "digital solidarity fund" to pay for expanding
Internet access to remote villages, but the U.S., Japan and European
countries have suggested that existing development aid should be used to
accomplish that. Meanwhile, negotiators have agreed to include in their
proposals wording supporting the commitment to press freedom taken from the
U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to maintain the status
quo on Internet governance, with the core systems based in the U.S. and
managed by ICANN. The declaration also calls on governments to work
together to combat spam and improve Internet security. (AP 8 Dec 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031208/D7VA8D480.html
SUMMIT PARTICIPANTS FACE 500-FOOT-HIGH VIRTUAL BILLBOARD
Participants at this week's World Summit on the Information Society will be
greeted by a 500-foot-high laser-light display that will beam thousands of
SMS messages onto a wall of water formed by the shooting jets of Lake
Geneva's Jet d'Eau, the world's tallest fountain. Internet users will be
able to post their messages almost instantly onto the fountain display, or
onto the northern fagade of the U.N. building in New York, a mountain face
in Rio de Janiero, or the front of a Bombay skyscraper. It's all part of
the Helloworld Project, the brainchild of Swiss Web designer Johannes Gees,
and is similar to a smaller version he debuted at the 2001 World Economic
Forum in Davos. "The idea is to use the media to allow people to get their
message across to powerful people," says Gees. "With this project's
intervention into public space, I give people who don't have money the
power to be present in a big, visible way." Requests from governments to
edit the messages have been refused, although Gees says his 12 multilingual
editors will screen out messages with personal insults, commercial content,
racism or sexism. He's also discouraging people from sending "Hi,
Mom!"-type messages. (Wired.com 8 Dec 2003)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61103,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
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
FEDERAL AID RULES WAIVED FOR FIVE DISTANCE-ED PROVIDERS
The Department of Education has expanded the list of institutions
exempt from the 50-percent rule, which denies federal aid to students
of programs that teach more than half their courses at a distance or
enroll more than half of their students as distance students. The rule
was designed to discourage distance education programs that were not
reputable, but critics have complained that the rule stifles
development of legitimate programs. Added to the list of exempted
institutions as part of the Distance Education Demonstration Program
are the College of Court Reporting Inc., Graceland University, Jones
International University, National Technological University Inc., and
Northcentral University, bringing the total to 29. The demonstration
program will continue through 2005, though there are currently
proposals before Congress to permanently ease the 50-percent rule.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 December 2003 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i16/16a03102.htm
TASK FORCE URGES BETTER FEDERAL INFORMATION SHARING
A report issued by the Markle Foundation calls on the federal
government to move away from the "Cold War" mentality of its current
approach to national security and open networks to a range of law
enforcement officials. The report, "Creating A Trusted Information
Network for Homeland Security," was written by a task force co-chaired
by James Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape. The task force argues that
the intense level of security applied by federal officials is no longer
appropriate for the risks of today. Rather than hiding information
inside its own networks, the federal government should share that
information with state and local governments. The report also
encourages cooperation with the private sector in sharing information
to protect national security, but cautions that such sharing would need
to protect civil liberties.
InformationWeek, 5 December 2003
http://www.informationweek.com/
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 Mostly Avoided By The Major U.S. Media
MORE REASONS WHY THE U.S. JOB MARKET LOOKS SO GRIM
Some recent research polls have indicated that of the jobs
advertised in U.S. newspapers, some 90% are given to those
who were already friends and acquaintances of the members
of the job search panels and committees.
***
HUGE GOVERMENT "PORK" EARMARKING PROBLEM
As you probably heard, the funding bill for thousands of
"pork barrel" projects was NOT passed today, and so won't
come up again until January 20.
What you may NOT have heard was the literally THOUSANDS
of reasons it wasn't passed, the silliest things money
can buy. . .or can't, in this case.
However, the Republician party leaders made a comment
that due to this dereliction of duty by the Democrats,
many people will not get flu vaccinations this year.
Sorry to say, but as far as I know, this is pure hokum.
Doctors told me several things in total contradiction:
1. Flu vaccinations are mostly given before this time.
2. The vaccines we have this year aren't particularly
well targeted at the the specific flu we have now.
3. It would take until well after the flu season for
more vaccines to be made. It's a long slow thing.
***
About the Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter:
[Goes out approximately first Wednesday of each month. But
different relays will get it to you at different times; you
can subscribe directly, just send me email to find out how,
or surf to promo.net/pg to subscribe directly by yourself.]
and
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 surf to promo.net/pg to subscribe directly by yourself.]
***
Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists:
For more information about the Project Gutenberg's mailing lists
please visit the following webpage:
http://gutenberg.net/subs.html
Archives and personal settings:
The Lyris Web interface has an easy way to browse past mailing list
contents, and change some personal settings. Visit
http://listserv.unc.edu and select one of the Project Gutenberg lists.
Trouble?
If you are having trouble subscribing, unsubscribing or with
anything else related to the mailing lists, please email
"owner-gutenberg@listserv.unc.edu" to contact the lists'
(human) administrator.
If you would just like a little more information about Lyris
features, you can find their help information at http://www.lyris.com/help
pgweekly_2003_12_10_part_1.txt
If you liked this post, say thanks by sharing it.