The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, April 07, 2004 PT1
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[From 2,237 to 12,237 = June, 2000 to April, 2004]
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Our newest Project Gutenberg language is introduced:
Creierul, O Enigma Descifrata, by Dorin Teodor Moisa #11756C
[The Brain, A Decyphered Enigma] [Copyright ="C"]
[Language: Romanian]
[Link: http://www.gutenberg.net/1/1/7/5/11756 ]
[Files: 11756.txt; 11756-8.txt; 11756-rtf.rtf ]
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1330 New eBooks in 2004
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FLASHBACK!!!
1330 New eBooks So Far in 2004
It took us 27 years for the first 1330 !
That's the 3 MONTHS of 2004 as Compared to ~27 YEARS!!!
Here Is A Sample Of What Books Were Being Done Around #1330
Jun 1998 An Old Maid, by Honore de Balzac [de Balzac #18][omaidxxx.xxx] 1352
Jun 1998 Chignecto Isthmus; First Settlers, Howard Trueman [chgntxxx.xxx] 1351
Jun 1998 The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac[Balzac #17][ctrdrxxx.xxx] 1350
Jun 1998 Russia, by Donald Mackenzie Wallace [rsdmwxxx.xxx] 1349
Jun 1998 A Master's Degree, by Margaret Hill McCarter [amsdgxxx.xxx] 1348
Jun 1998 A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson, by Edouard le Roy[anphbxxx.xxx] 1347
Jun 1998 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx [mar18xxx.xxx] 1346
Jun 1998 The Vicar of Tours, by Honore de Balzac[Balzac#16][vcrtrxxx.xxx] 1345
Jun 1998 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan, Balzac [#15][sdpdcxxx.xxx] 1344
Jun 1998 Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac [Balzac #14][brcrcxxx.xxx] 1343
Jun 1998 Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen [Austen #8][pandpxxx.xxx] 1342
Jun 1998 The Altruist in Politics, by Benjamin Cardozo [ltpltxxx.xxx] 1341
Jun 1998 Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume I [1aadwxxx.xxx] 1340
Jun 1998 Salome,by Oscar Wilde[No Accents][Oscar Wilde #21][salmexxx.xxx] 1339
Jun 1998 Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde [Oscar Wilde #20][slpwlxxx.xxx] 1338
Jun 1998 Shelley, by Sydney Waterlow [Percy Bysshe Shelley][wshlyxxx.xxx] 1337
Jun 1998 Shelley, by Francis Thompson[Percy Bysshe Shelley][tshlyxxx.xxx] 1336
Jun 1998 The Ancien Regime, by Charles Kingsley[Kingsley#5][anrgmxxx.xxx] 1335
Jun 1998 Paul Kelver by Jerome K. Jerome [JeromeKJerome#13][pklvrxxx.xxx] 1334
Jun 1998 R F Murray: His Poems with a Memoir by Andrew Lang[rfmurxxx.xxx] 1333
May 1998 Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie 3[ppikgxxx.xxx] 1332
May 1998 ABC's of Science, by Charles Oliver [abcosxxx.xxx] 1331
May 1998 The Story of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman[samboxxx.xxx] 1330
[Also contains: The Story of Little Black Mingo]
May 1998 A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay [vrctrxxx.xxx] 1329
.(Note: the filename vrctrxxx.xxx is also used for a totally different
.(eBook, #1899 in etext00)
May 1998 The Tinker's Wedding, by J. M. Synge [Synge #4][tnkwdxxx.xxx] 1328
May 1998 Elizabeth and her German Garden, by "Elizabeth" [lzgdnxxx.xxx] 1327
May 1998 The Crisis in Russia, by Arthur Ransome[Ransome#2][crrusxxx.xxx] 1326
May 1998 Twenty Years At Hull House, by Jane Addams [20yhhxxx.xxx] 1325
May 1998 Russia in 1919, by Arthur Ransome [Ransome #1][19rusxxx.xxx] 1324
May 1998 History Of The Conquest Of Peru, by Prescott [New][hcpruxxa.xxx] 1323
May 1998 Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman [Walt Whitman #1][lvgrsxxx.xxx] 1322
May 1998 The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot [T. S. Eliot #1] [wslndxxx.xxx] 1321
May 1998 Criminal Psychology, by Hans Gross [crmsyxxx.xxx] 1320
May 1998 Increasing Efficiency In Business, by W.D. Scott [ihdibxxx.xxx] 1319
May 1998 The Twin Hells, by John N. Reynolds [twnhlxxx.xxx] 1318
May 1998 Saltbush Bill J.P., by A. B. "Banjo" Paterson [#4][biljpxxx.xxx] 1317
May 1998 Some Reminiscences, by Joseph Conrad [conrad #21][rmnisxxx.xxx] 1316
May 1998 Autobiography & Selected Essays, by Thomas Huxley [asethxxx.xxx] 1315
May 1998 The Malefactor, by E. Phillips Oppenheim [EPE#1][mlfctxxx.xxx] 1314
May 1998 Over The Sliprails, by Henry Lawson [Lawson #4][oslipxxx.xxx] 1313
May 1998 Selected Stories, by Bret Harte [Bret Harte #1][hartexxx.xxx] 1312
May 1998 If, by Lord Dunsany [Edward John Plunkett] [#1][ifdunxxx.xxx] 1311
May 1998 The Annals of the Parish, John Galt[THE John Galt][anaprxxx.xxx] 1310
May 1998 The Spirit of Place, et. al., by Alice Meynell[#6][sptplxxx.xxx] 1309
May 1998 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous, Oscar Wilde[Collection][wldmsxxx.xxx] 1308
Contents:
A Florentine Tragedy [Wilde #19]
La Sainte Courtisane [Wilde #18]
May 1998 The Magic Skin, by Honore de Balzac [Balzac #12][mgcskxxx.xxx] 1307
May 1998 Seven Men, by Max Beerbohm [Max Beerbohm #4] [svnmnxxx.xxx] 1306
May 1998 The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac[Balzac #11][blscoxxx.xxx] 1305
May 1998 Project Gutenberg's Book of English Verse [Oxford][pgbevxxx.xxx] 1304
[Formerly: The Oxford Book of English Verse]
[AKA: Bulchevy's Book of English Verse]
May 1998 The Scapegoat, by Hall Caine [scpgtxxx.xxx] 1303
May 1998 Enemies of Books, by William Blades [nmybkxxx.xxx] 1302
May 1998 The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle[Carlyle#5][frrevxxx.xxx] 1301
May 1998 Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey [Grey #7][prpsgxxx.xxx] 1300
May 1998 The Heritage of the Sioux by B. M. Bower[Bower #6][hrtsuxxx.xxx] 1299
May 1998 The Virginian, Horseman Of The Plains, Owen Wister[vrgnnxxx.xxx] 1298
May 1998 The Iron Puddler, by James J. Davis [tirnpxxx.xxx] 1297
Apr 1998 The Provost, by John Galt [This is THE John Galt] [prvstxxx.xxx] 1296
***
Today Is Day #091 of 2004
This Completes Week #13 and Month #3
272 Days/39 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
7763 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
102 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]
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*** Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
Statistical Review
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It took us from 1971 to 1997 to produce our FIRST 1330 eBooks!!!
That's 12 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 YEARS!!!
With 12,230 eBooks online as of April 07, 2004 it now takes an average
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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 $1.32 when we had 7548 eBooks A Year Ago
Can you imagine 12,000 books each costing $.50 less a year later???
Or. . .would this say it better?
Can you imagine 12,000 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???
At 12,230 eBooks in 32 Years and 9.00 Months We Averaged
373 Per Year [We do more per than that month these days!]
31.1 Per Month
1.02 Per Day
At 1330 eBooks Done In The 091 Days Of 2004 We Averaged
14.6 Per Day
102.3 Per Week
443.3 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 7th was
the first Wednesday of 2004, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2003 and began the production year of 2004 at noon.
This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
***Headline News***
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
>From Newsscan:
JOBS, OUTSOURCING, AND TWO KINDS OF LIES
The job market -- which is by nature dynamic --has changed throughout
history, and change remains the order of the day, as MIT economist Frank
Levy explains: "If you can describe a job precisely, or write rules for
doing it, it's unlikely to survive. Either we'll program a computer to do
it, or we'll teach a foreigner to do it. Outsourcing accelerates what
technology was already doing. Take call centers. Eight, 10 years down the
line, we could do a lot more with voice-recognition software. But with
outsourcing you can do away with those jobs now... There are two kinds of
lies that politicians tell about outsourcing. One is that we can turn it all
back. But even if you cut off all trade, technology can do the same things
to workers. The other is that education is all that matters. That's true, of
course, but only in the long run." (Wall Street Journal 2 Apr 2004)
http://tinyurl.com/2ejwu ([PAID!]sub req'd) [$80 per year???]
[And. . .in a related story. . .perhaps even MORE related than. . .hee hee!]
THE OUTSOURCING PARADOX
A report prepared for the Information Technology Association of America
(ITAA) by Global Insight predicts that the continuing business trend of
outsourcing white-collar jobs to low wage countries will ultimately lower
inflation, create jobs and boost productivity in the U.S. Although the
researchers believe that demand for U.S. software engineers will shrink
through 2008, ITAA is emphasizing that outsourcing has damaged the job
market far less than the dot-com meltdown of early 2000, when Internet
startups, telecom companies and other companies eliminated as many as
268,000 positions. ITAA president Harris Miller says, "The myth is that
we've started this long decline into the midnight of the technology work
force. This report shows that, assuming the recovery continues, the number
of IT jobs will actually increase." (AP/Los Angeles Times 30 Mar 2004)
http://tinyurl.com/yunzp
GOOGLE UPS THE ANTE WITH E-MAIL SERVICE
Google is launching a new e-mail service dubbed Gmail, which it says
will offer users better access to searching their e-mail as well as a large
amount of free storage capacity. The move raises the stakes with
competitors Yahoo and MSN, which have long provided e-mail services but as
a tiered product that provided only minimal storage at the free level while
charging fees to users who wanted more capacity. Google plans to support
Gmail through advertising rather than fees. (New York Times 1 Apr 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/technology/01google.html
[And. . .In A Related Story. . .and See Another Related Story in Edupage]
PRIVACY ADVOCATES TARGET GOOGLE'S GMAIL STORAGE POLICY
Privacy advocates are voicing concern over Google's data retention
plans, following the search company's splashy launch of its free Gmail
service last week. Google's Gmail privacy policy tells users: "The contents
of your Gmail account are also stored and maintained on Google servers in
order to provide the service. Indeed, residual copies of e-mail may remain
on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after
the termination of your account." The fact that e-mail records potentially
could be combined with Google search cookies, designed to index users'
searches through 2038, and an Orkut cookie that contains personal
identification information, is what has privacy watchdogs worried. "Once
users register for Gmail, Google would be able to make that connection, if
it chose to," says Pam Dixon, head of the World Privacy Forum. "And if
Google ever compared the two sets of data, there are some people who would
be chilled and embarrassed." Archivist Daniel Brandt adds: "While Google
brags that no humans will read your e-mails, the entire Gmail program will
involve extensive automated profiling of you as an individual. Google will
be sharing non-identifiable portions of your profile with anyone they choose.
If the ownership of Google changes, or there is a merger, the entire
personally-identifiable profile will be available to the new owners or partners."
(The Register 3 Apr 2004)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36778.html
'FLASH MOB SUPERCOMPUTER' FIZZLES
An ambitious plan to assemble an instant supercomputer by asking more
than 600 students, faculty and volunteers to converge on a University of
San Francisco gymnasium with their laptops in hand fell short of
expectations Saturday when a handful of computers refused to cooperate.
Organizers planned to load each machine with software that would enable
them to take part in a single large set of calculations, known and the
Linpack benchmark. The result was intended to be similar to massively
parallel supercomputers used by corporate researchers and scientific labs,
but the USF effort succeeded in producing only a partial result -- 180
billion mathematical operations per second -- short of the 500 billion
operations per second they needed to snag a place in the Top 500
supercomputer list. "If we had twice as many machines and another two days,
I think we would have been successful," says USF computer science professor
Gregory D. Benson. (New York Times 5 Apr 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/technology/05super.html
KAZAA OWNER WELCOMES SURVEY FINDINGS
Sharman Networks, owner of the Kazaa peer-to-peer software, has been
quick to seize on the findings of a survey released in the U.S. on Monday
which concluded that downloading music had no effect on album sales. In a
media release issued last evening, Sharman chief executive Nicola Hemming
said "We welcome sound research into the developing peer-to-peer industry
and this study appears to have covered some interesting ground. The
findings certainly support the vision we've always held for Kazaa and
crystallizes our vision for the future of content distribution." The 2002
study was conducted jointly by researchers from Harvard Business School and
the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and used data from
file-sharing services with 1.75 million downloads being studied over 17
weeks in autumn 2002. "Consider the possibilities if the record industry
actually cooperated with companies like us instead of fighting," Ms.
Hemming said. "We've offered content providers the opportunity to work with
peer-to-peer customers for nearly two years, yet the record industry
continues its narrow-minded strategy of litigation and legislation. (The
Age, 31 March 2004, rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin University)
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/31/1080544527334.html
You have been reading excerpts from NewsScan:
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***
>From Edupage
FILE TRADERS SAFE IN CANADA
A federal court in Canada has ruled that use of P2P networks to trade
music files does not constitute a violation of Canadian copyright law.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association had sought the identities
of 29 individuals alleged to have illegally shared files over P2P
networks. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled, however, that the
association did not prove that the individuals had in fact distributed
songs or authorized their illegal reproduction. Simply placing the
songs on their computers and granting P2P access to those songs to
other users on the network does not prove copyright infringement, said
von Finckenstein. An attorney for the Canadian Recording Industry
Association said the group would appeal and suggested that Canadian
laws are not keeping up with evolving technologies that allow digital
piracy on such a large scale.
Washington Post, 31 March 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40398-2004Mar31.html
[And. . .in a related story]
SECOND JUDGE REJECTS RIAA'S GROUP LAWSUITS
Weeks after a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled that the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) may not discover the identities
of multiple users from a single lawsuit, a judge in Florida has reached
the same conclusion. After a court ruling that said the RIAA could not
compel ISPs to disclose the identities of alleged copyright infringers
without filing a lawsuit, the group began filing individual lawsuits
against multiple defendants who share an ISP. That tactic has now been
rejected by two federal judges, forcing the RIAA to file separate "John
Doe" lawsuits against every individual it suspects of violating
copyright law. The group can still sue alleged violators and learn
their identities from ISPs, but it must do so on an individual basis,
which will cost the group more money and take more time.
Wired News, 1 April 2004
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,62915,00.html
GOOGLE ENTERS THE E-MAIL FRAY
Search engine Google will launch an e-mail service, called Gmail, and
take on companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo, both of which offer
e-mail as well as search services. Yahoo and Microsoft have recently
announced efforts to try to improve their share of the search market,
currently dominated by Google. Google will start well behind Microsoft,
Yahoo, and AOL in number of subscribers; each of those three companies
has more than 30 million subscribers already. The new Gmail service
will reportedly offer users premium features, such as the ability to
store large amounts of e-mail, for free. Current e-mail offerings from
Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL typically offer free e-mail accounts but
charge users for storage above a relatively low threshold.
New York Times, 1 April 2004 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/technology/01google.html
[See Related Story Above]
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More Headline News Mostly Avoided By The Major U.S. Media
I've been researching and reporting on "Stereolithography" or 3-D
printing for about 10 years, and still have very little in the way
of press coverage of a pretty exciting computer application. . .
"printing" actual 3-D objects from your computer. At our weekly
Geek Lunch yesterday, I was advised that ads for "printers" that
use lasers to "print" on wood, plastic, fabric, paper, glass,
leather, stone, ceramic rubber, etc., have been listed and
advertized in some of the PC magazines since I left on my
speaking tour around four months ago. One of the cutest
applications I noticed was the making of "popup books" in
which the laser actually cuts the pages so when it sits at
a right angle, something as complex as an architectural
"concept building" can appear in a nice 3-D rendering.
I'm not sure yet if there might not be more work entailed
to make sure the paper/cardboard folded properly.
Any additional information on ANY 3-D printers???
Please email hart@pobox.com.
[So. . .Why Can't *WE* Put RFID Tags On Our OWN Things for 20 Cents???]
RFID TECHNOLOGY FOR AIRPORT BAGGAGE-TRACKING
Jacksonville International will be one of the first airports to track
luggage with RFID tags to increase security and help reduce the number of
lost bags. RFID stands for "radio frequency identification" systems, which
use electronic readers to record data stored within microchips encased in
plastic tags laced with metal bands that transmit signals to monitoring
devices. However, the cost of a disposable RFID chip begins at about 20
cents, which is 20 times what it costs to produce bar-code tags.
(AP/USA Today 5 Apr 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-04-05-jax-bags_x.htm
[And. . .in a related story]
TSA EYES RFID BOARDING PASSES
The Transportation Security Administration is looking into the
possibility of using RFID-tagged airline boarding passes that would enable
passenger tracking in airports -- a proposal that has raised the hackles of
some privacy advocates. TSA says it would use the special boarding passes
in conjunction with its "registered traveler" program, which would permit
frequent fliers to provide detailed personal information, corroborated by a
background check. The RFID passes would allow these registered travelers to
speed through "special lanes" during the boarding process. The TSA has
already started work to deploy RFID boarding passes in some countries in
Africa under the Federal Aviation Administration's Safe Skies for Africa
Initiative. But Katherine Albrecht, who worked against the use of RFID tags
on retail goods, says this new proposal is a "nightmare scenario," which
uses technology to invade people's privacy. "Are they going to track how
long I spend in the ladies room?" she asks. (Computerworld 1 Apr 2004)
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/privacy/story/0,10801,91830
,00.html
WHO KILLED THE NEW YORK TIMES?
Some newspaper-watchers say that deposed executive editor Howell Raines
seriously damaged the stature and credibility of the New York Times because
of the way he managed the newsroom and the news; others give the blame to
Jayson Blair, a Raines protigi who flagrantly plagiarized stories from other
newspapers and committed other editorial sins as well. Decide for yourself.
Raines justifies his own actions in a very long apologia called "My Times"
in the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly; for Blair's version of events, see
his recent book "Burning Down My Master's House: My Life at the New York
Times." Unsurprisingly, both versions of the story are distinctly
self-serving accounts of what actually happened. (Atlantic Monthly May 2004)
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/05/raines-excerpts.htm
[Talk About "Self-Serving". . .just look at the source of the article! ;-)]
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