From hart at pglaf.org Wed Oct 26 09:57:00 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Wed Oct 26 09:57:06 2005
Subject: [gweekly] PT1b Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0510260956330.12535@pglaf.org>
Weekly_October_26.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, October 26, 2005 PT1*
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PT1B
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 09.75 months of this year, we produced 2449 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to Dec 2000 to produce our first 2449 eBooks!
That's 42 WEEKS as Compared to ~29.50 Years!!!
52 New eBooks This Week
52 New eBooks Last Week
157 New eBooks This Month [Oct]
~251 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
2449 New eBooks in 2005
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
14,343 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 57.50 Months!
Over 250 books per month!
17,405 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
14,225 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
3,180 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
499 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
[This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted
at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ]
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PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
Please note the addition of the Internet Archive
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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] <<<
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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
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~34,286 Unique eBooks
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You can try a new IPL service at:
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It would appear that The Internet Public Library ended
its first incarnation with about 22,284 entries, which
has now been surpassed by the Online Books Page.
Still looking for more Internet Public Library info.
***
Today Is Day #294 of 2005
This Completes Week #42 and Month #09.75 [364 days this year]
70 Days/10 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
2,595 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
58 Weekly Average in 2005
78 Weekly Average in 2004
79 Weekly Average in 2003
47 Weekly Average in 2002
24 Weekly Average in 2001
43 Only 43 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list
[Used to be well over 100]
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Statistical Review
In the 41 weeks of this year, we have produced 2449 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 11/00 to produce our FIRST 2449 eBooks!!!
That's 42 WEEKS as Compared to ~29.50 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #2449
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
[Note: books without month and year entries have been reposted]
Dec 2000 Boyhood, by Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi [Leo Tolstoy #8][boyhdxxx.xxx] 2450
[Tr.: CJ Hogarth]
Dec 2000 The Common Law, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. [#3][cmnlwxxx.xxx] 2449
Dec 2000 The Colored Cadet at West Point, by Henry Flipper [ccawpxxx.xxx] 2448
Dec 2000 Eminent Victorians, by Lytton Strachey [mnvctxxx.xxx] 2447
Dec 2000 An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen [Ibsen #3][aeotpxxx.xxx] 2446
[Tr.: Farquharson Sharp]
Letters on England, by Voltaire 2445
[Editor: Henry Morley]
[Author AKA: Francois Marie Arouet]
Dec 2000 Oxford [City & University], by Andrew Lang[AL #25][oxfrdxxx.xxx] 2444
Dec 2000 The Story of the Mormons by William Alexander Linn[tsotmxxx.xxx] 2443
Dec 2000 History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson[Pres][hioajxxx.xxx] 2442
[Author: Edmund G. Ross]
Dec 2000 The Burgess Animal Book for Children, by Burgess 2[babfcxxx.xxx] 2441
[Author: Thornton W. Burgess]
Dec 2000 The Naturalist on the River Amazons by Henry Bates[notraxxx.xxx] 2440
Dec 2000 History of England, James II Vol. 2, Macaulay[#9][2hoejxxx.xxx] 2439
[Title: The History of England from the Accession of James II]
[Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay] (See also #1468)
*
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
1.12 Trillion eBooks Given Away
If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,475,055,104 that would be 17,405 x 64,750,551 = ~1.13 Trillion !!!
With 17,405 eBooks online as of October 26, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.89 from each book.
[1% world population x #eBooks] 64,750,551 x 17,405 x $.89 = ~$1 Trillion
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population, or 100,000,000 readers.
With 17,405 eBooks online as of October 26, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.57 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.70 when we had 14,225 eBooks a year ago.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
At 17,405 eBooks in 34 Years and 03.75 Months We Averaged
~507 Per Year
42.3 Per Month
1.39 Per Day
At 2449 eBooks Done In The 294 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
8.3 Per Day
58 Per Week
251 Per Month
If you are interested in the population of the world or of the U.S.
you might want to know that these numbers, official as they appear,
are just just estimates, and perhaps not as accurate as we hope.
Recently the U.S. Congress, pertaining to district reapportionment,
who gets to vote for which Congresspeople, decided that many of the
districts were undercounted by 5%, perhaps then later deciding that
all districts had been undercounted by 5% [can't recall details].
However, I just this moment heard a news item that made me wonder a
bit more about the accuracy of the U.S. Census. A "Special Census"
is taking place in Normal, Illinois, that is expected to count more
people, by a factor of 3,000 or 3,400, depending on which source.
45,386 was the population as per the 2000 Census, so 3,000 added to
this would be an increase of 6.6%, and 3,400 would be 7.5%, above a
possibly automatic increase of 5% as per the same terms above but I
presume this is in addition to previous adjustments.
Of course, we should consider that we would have to double figures,
perhaps to 15% from those above, if are considering the normal time
between censuses of 10 years, these are for 5 years' growth.
In previous news I heard about the U.S. Census, no mention was made
about the annexation of various nearly locations as a cause of this
normally unexpected growth, but it is mentioned at the site I found
on the subject of the current Special Census.
If annexation is the primary cause of such increases, country wide,
then we should not be expecting a huge rise in the 2010 Census, but
rather should expect something more along the norm. However, if it
is not annexation, but more actual people on the average, then this
might be an indicator that the population of the U.S. may have seen
300 million go by some time ago.
For more details, see: www.normal.org/WhatsNew/Census.htm
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.
***
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From hart at pglaf.org Wed Oct 26 09:55:49 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Wed Oct 26 09:55:56 2005
Subject: [gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0510260955040.12535@pglaf.org>
Weekly_October_26.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, October 26, 2005 PT1*
******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971********
PT1A
Editor's comments appear in [brackets].
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 AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
STATISTICAL CHANGES
Due to various changes in our statistical reporting and coverage,
the accuracy of the weekly count of the number of eBooks will not
be as redundantly checked by a human count, and we will rely more
on the automated system.
***If you notice any inconsistencies, please send email to:
hart AT pglaf DOT org
*
WANTED!
>>> !!!People to help us collect ALL public domain eBooks!!! <<<
*
Wanted: People who are involved in conversations on Slashdot, Salon, etc.
*
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
5 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
47 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones*
***500+ eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971***
17,405 eBooks As Of Today!!!
[Includes Australian eBooks]
We Are ~87% of the Way to 20,000!!!
14,343 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's 250+ eBooks per Month for ~56 Months
We Have Produced 2449 eBooks in 2005!!!
2,596 to go to 20,000!!!
7,590 from Distributed Proofreaders
Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B]
We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Are Averaging ~250 books Per Month This Year
[This change is due to the opening of Project Gutenberg
sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org]
This Site Is Averaging ~58 eBooks Per Week This Year
52 This Week
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~32 months, from 2002 to 2005 for our last 10,000 eBooks
It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100
It took ~2.00 years from Oct. 2003 to Oct. 2005 from 10,000 to 17,350
*
***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. Note bene
that PT1 is now being sent as PT1A and PT1B.
[Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a
few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us:
hart@pobox.com and gbnewby@pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.]
This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
HIGHER EDUCATION RESPONDS TO CALEA ORDER
The higher education community is preparing several responses to an
order by the Federal Communications Commission to extend the provisions
of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to
Internet service providers, including institutions of higher education,
libraries, and municipalities that provide Internet access. The order
would require covered entities to configure their networks to allow law
enforcement officials--with the authority of a court order--to tap into
data streams remotely. Currently, such taps typically require the
assistance of network personnel. Making networks compliant with the new
regulations would in most cases require significant investment in new
switches and routers, and higher education officials contend that the
expense would not be justified by the number of taps placed on their
networks. By some accounts, U.S. colleges and universities would incur
costs of at least $7 billion to redesign their networks. Those seeking
an exception from CALEA for education noted that in 2003, just 12 of
nearly 1,500 wiretap orders were issued for computer networks.
Representatives of higher education are working on responses including
appeals, possible lawsuits, and negotiations with federal officials.
Higher education officials said that the objection is not with
providing appropriate assistance to law enforcement but that lower-cost
solutions would provide the needed capability without placing a large
financial burden on colleges and universities and their students.
New York Times, 23 October 2005 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/technology/23college.html
STANFORD PODCASTS GO TO ITUNES
Under a new deal with Apple Computer, podcasts from various aspects of
campus life at Stanford University will be available on the iTunes Web
site. The arrangement is the first one in which a university has made
an institution-wide commitment to provide podcasts to iTunes. The
podcasts will include academic content such as lectures, coverage of
sporting events, and podcasts created by students. About 400 podcasts
are currently included, and Stanford officials said they plan to
regularly add content to the site, which is its own section of the
iTunes Music Store. Other institutions are said to be considering
similar programs, and the addition of capacity to handle video files in
iTunes could make the service appealing to still others. In a separate
project, Stanford podcasts are being made available through iTunes only
to students and professors involved in a group of university courses.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 October 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/10/2005102102t.htm
MORE SUITS TARGET GOOGLE'S BOOK SCANNING PROJECT
After failing to reach an agreement during several months of
negotiations, a group of five publishers has filed a lawsuit against
Google over its book-scanning project. The project has come under fire
since it was announced, with publishers and copyright holders arguing
that scanning their texts constitutes a violation of their copyright,
regardless of whether the digital copy is made available online in its
entirety. Penguin, McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Simon and Schuster,
and John Wiley and Sons have sued Google, seeking to have the project
cancelled. The publishers are asking for Google to pay court costs but
not damages. All five are members of the Association of American
Publishers, which had been in talks with Google for months. Last month,
an organization representing writers sued Google over the book-scanning
project. Google continues to maintain that it respects the rights of
publishers and copyright holders and that the project will bring wider
exposure for the scanned text.
BBC, 19 October 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4358768.stm
You have been reading excerpts from Edupage:
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***
News from other sources:
The Parents Television Council announced their Top Ten list
of recommended television programs this week, only they did
not seem to be able to find ten shows they could recommend.
*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
[As requested adding sources, etc., when possible.
Remember, the subject is not the article's subject,
the subject is the manipulation of the world news.]
White House and Congressional "Spin Cycle" from Monday to Friday.
Nomination for new Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank [actually
NOT a part of the United States government, for those interested]
with another White House insider on Monday, October 24. Designed
perhaps to distract this news cycle from the impending indictment
of several even more prominent White House insiders.
[BBC]
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
The White House refuses to comment on ongoing investigations.
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
The Valerie Plame incident will continue to be kept low key.
*STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK
New releases of conversation between US Vice President Dick Cheney
and Lewis "Scooter" Libby on June 12, 2003 have focused attention
on Mr. Cheney's possible connection with revealing the identity of
covert CIA agent Valeria Plame, and appear to contradict Mr. Libby's
previous testimony that he never knew about Ms. Plame until he spoke
with newspaper reporters. [See also: Judith Miller and Robert Novak]
Ms. Plame had been described as "a working soccer mom," but in fact
was a clandestine CIA agent specializing in weapons of mass destruction.
The question being investigated is if the Bush administration revealed
her identity to the press as retaliation when her husband, Ambassador
Joeseph Wilson, publicly announced the Bush administration falsified
reports of Iraq buying the now infamous "yellow cake uranium" that was
used as an exuse to invade Iraq.
Libby's notes indicate Mr. Cheney knew Ms. Plame was CIA over a month
before Robert Novak's article revealing her as an agent was published.
[Scotsman.com News - International - Cheney drawn into row]
[The New York Times]
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
Virtual Reference Service Notes 40% Increase This Year
[KnowItNow, Ohio]
[However, other places that have stopped promoting such services
say the user level has plateaued.
*
2,000 dead in Iraq.
However, this is an artifical statistic, as reported in the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Miami Herald.
In addition, The UK's Herald adds commentary on the return
to Vietnam War style of statistical reporting.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/49465.html
*
Top Ten for kids
The Parents Television Council yesterday released its annual list of
This week the 10 best and worst shows for family viewing were limited
to 10, as they could only find 9 shows they actually approved of.
*
The first "Tropical Storm Alpha" of recorded history occured this week,
the 22nd tropical storm of the season, killing many in the Caribbean.
*
882 millibars of air pressure in hurricane Wilma,
the lowest air pressure ever recorded in Atlantic hurricanes.
*
Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries.
"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 America
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 think this is now much greater]
1 would be 79 years old or more.
Of those born today, the life expectancy is only 63 years,
but no country any longer issues copyrights that are sure
to expire within that 63 year period.
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.
*
POEM OF THE WEEK
I Can't
I can't be with you
only because it makes you happy, I told the Leaf,
for I was a Bird
singing much too often about freedom
unaware that I shared with the Leaf
a whole branch
Copyright 2005 by Simona Sumanaru and Michael S. Hart
Please send comments to: simona_s75 AT yahoo.com & hart AT pobox.com
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From hart at pglaf.org Wed Oct 19 09:55:38 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Wed Oct 19 09:55:42 2005
Subject: [gweekly] PT1b Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0510190954580.25142@pglaf.org>
pt1b2.o05
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It took us from July 1971 to Nov 2000 to produce our first 2397 eBooks!
That's 41 WEEKS as Compared to ~29.50 Years!!!
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336 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
2397 New eBooks in 2005
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
14,291 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 57.50 Months!
Over 250 books per month!
17,353 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
14,156 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
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Internet Archive ~30,000 eBook Files [In Progress] <<<
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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
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If we presume 2 out of 3 of these files are overcounts,
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It would appear that The Internet Public Library ended
its first incarnation with about 22,284 entries, which
has now been surpassed by the Online Books Page.
Still looking for more Internet Public Library info.
***
Today Is Day #287 of 2005
This Completes Week #41 and Month #08.50 [364 days this year]
77 Days/14 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
2,647 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
58 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]
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Statistical Review
In the 41 weeks of this year, we have produced 2397 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 11/00 to produce our FIRST 2397 eBooks!!!
That's 41 WEEKS as Compared to ~29.42 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #2397
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
[Note: books without month and year entries have been reposted]
Nov 2000 Vikram and the Vampire, by Sir Richard F. Burton [vikrvxxx.xxx] 2400
Nov 2000 Imaginary Portraits, by Walter Pater [W. Pater #2][iprtrxxx.xxx] 2399
Nov 2000 The Renaissance, by Walter Pater [rnsncxxx.xxx] 2398
Nov 2000 Story of My Life, by Helen Keller [kellexxx.xxx] 2397
Nov 2000 History of the Catholic Church, V 1, J. MacCaffrey[hcathxxx.xxx] 2396
Nov 2000 The Golden Fleece, by Padraic Colum [fleecxxx.xxx] 2395
(See also: #1614, a different version)
Nov 2000 The Grand Canyon of Arizona, by George W. James [gcoazxxx.xxx] 2394
Nov 2000 His Dog, by Albert Payson Terhune [hsdogxxx.xxx] 2393
Nov 2000 Further Adventures of Lad, Albert Payson Terhune [faladxxx.xxx] 2392
Nov 2000 Bruce, by Albert Payson Terhune [brucexxx.xxx] 2391
Nov 2000 The Conquest of the Old Southwest, by Henderson [cnqswxxx.xxx] 2390
Nov 2000 Bardelys the Magnificent, by Rafael Sabatini [bardexxx.xxx] 2389
Nov 2000 The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Sir Edwin Arnold [bgitaxxx.xxx] 2388
Nov 2000 The Voice, by Margaret Deland [voicexxx.xxx] 2387
Nov 2000 Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, Thayer [teddyxxx.xxx] 2386
*
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
1.12 Trillion eBooks Given Away
If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,473,624,889 that would be 17,353 x 64,736,249 = ~1.12 Trillion !!!
With 17,353 eBooks online as of October 19, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.89 from each book.
[1% world population x #eBooks] 64,736,249 x 17,353 x $.89 = ~$1 Trillion
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population, or 100,000,000 readers.
With 17,353 eBooks online as of October 19, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.58 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.71 when we had 14,291 eBooks a year ago.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
At 17,353 eBooks in 34 Years and 03.50 Months We Averaged
~506 Per Year
42.2 Per Month
1.39 Per Day
At 2397 eBooks Done In The 287 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
8.4 Per Day
58 Per Week
252 Per Month
If you are interested in the population of the world or of the U.S.
you might want to know that these numbers, official as they appear,
are just just estimates, and perhaps not as accurate as we hope.
Recently the U.S. Congress, pertaining to district reapportionment,
who gets to vote for which Congresspeople, decided that many of the
districts were undercounted by 5%, perhaps then later deciding that
all districts had been undercounted by 5% [can't recall details].
However, I just this moment heard a news item that made me wonder a
bit more about the accuracy of the U.S. Census. A "Special Census"
is taking place in Normal, Illinois, that is expected to count more
people, by a factor of 3,000 or 3,400, depending on which source.
45,386 was the population as per the 2000 Census, so 3,000 added to
this would be an increase of 6.6%, and 3,400 would be 7.5%, above a
possibly automatic increase of 5% as per the same terms above but I
presume this is in addition to previous adjustments.
Of course, we should consider that we would have to double figures,
perhaps to 15% from those above, if are considering the normal time
between censuses of 10 years, these are for 5 years' growth.
In previous news I heard about the U.S. Census, no mention was made
about the annexation of various nearly locations as a cause of this
normally unexpected growth, but it is mentioned at the site I found
on the subject of the current Special Census.
If annexation is the primary cause of such increases, country wide,
then we should not be expecting a huge rise in the 2010 Census, but
rather should expect something more along the norm. However, if it
is not annexation, but more actual people on the average, then this
might be an indicator that the population of the U.S. may have seen
300 million go by some time ago.
For more details, see: www.normal.org/WhatsNew/Census.htm
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.
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From hart at pglaf.org Wed Oct 19 09:54:23 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Wed Oct 19 09:54:28 2005
Subject: [gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0510190953440.25142@pglaf.org>
Weekly_October_19.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, October 19, 2005 PT1*
******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971********
PT1A
Editor's comments appear in [brackets].
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*
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***If you notice any inconsistencies, please send email to:
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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
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*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
5 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
47 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones*
***500+ eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971***
17,353 eBooks As Of Today!!!
[Includes Australian eBooks]
We Are ~87% of the Way to 20,000!!!
14,239 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's 250+ eBooks per Month for ~56 Months
We Have Produced 2397 eBooks in 2005!!!
2,647 to go to 20,000!!!
7,559 from Distributed Proofreaders
Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B]
We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Are Averaging ~250 books Per Month This Year
[This change is due to the opening of Project Gutenberg
sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org]
This Site Is Averaging ~58 eBooks Per Week This Year
52 This Week
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~32 months, from 2002 to 2005 for our last 10,000 eBooks
It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100
It took ~2.00 years from Oct. 2003 to Oct. 2005 from 10,000 to 17,350
*
***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. Note bene
that PT1 is now being sent as PT1A and PT1B.
[Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a
few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us:
hart@pobox.com and gbnewby@pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.]
This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
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
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
RESULTS OF RESNET SURVEY RELEASED
The ResNet Organization has released results from a survey it conducted
earlier this year of those responsible for residential networks at 224
colleges and universities. The leading concern among network
administrators is security, with P2P activity coming in at a distant
second. Administrators also put security at the top of the list of
issues they expect to take significant amounts of time and resources
over the next couple of years, with wireless networking coming in
second and P2P issues falling to seventh. David G. Futey, associate
director of academic computing at Stanford University and a member of
the ResNet Organization, said the survey provides new insight into
"determining what a res-net service area is at institutions, the level
of services it provides, and the technology supported through it."
Futey commented that he was surprised to see that of the respondents to
the survey, nearly half had not installed wireless networks. The survey
also indicated that more than half of responding institutions charge
technology fees but that at about half of those that charge a fee, no
part of the fee supports residential networks.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 October 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/10/2005101402t.htm
ANONYMOUS DONOR BUYS MUSIC FOR STANFORD
Money from an anonymous donor will pay for online music service for
students at Stanford University. University officials said the donation
did not require any particular vendor, and the institution has chosen
the recently introduced service from Yahoo. Stanford has said it would
not pay for music services and would not use student fees to subsidize
such services because it "is not part of our research or teaching
mission," according to Susan Weinstein, director of business
development at the university. After the first year of service, which
Stanford considers a trial program, prices for the Yahoo service will
be $1.75 per month for basic service, which allows unlimited streaming
or downloads to a computer, or $4.75 per month for a premium service
that allows users to transfer songs to other devices, including
portable music players.
ZDNet, 13 October 2005
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5894967.html
PANEL WARNS U.S. NOT KEEPING PACE IN SCIENCE
A new report says that the United States stands to lose its leading
position in science and research unless efforts are made to strengthen
support for educational and other scientific programs. The panel that
wrote the report was convened by the National Academies and included
representatives from corporations and higher education, as well as
Nobel laureates and former presidential appointees. The panel pointed
to the narrowing scientific gap between the United States and countries
such as China and India; recent results showing declining performance
among U.S. students in science and math compared with students around
the world; and economic factors that work against U.S. scientific
interests. Among the report's recommendations are funding scholarships
to support 10,000 students annually to pursue careers in teaching math
and science; allocating money for 30,000 students per year to study
science, math, and engineering; and relaxing visa regulations to allow
international students to find employment in the United States after
they graduate.
CNET, 13 October 2005
http://news.com.com/2100-11395_3-5894854.html
REPORT ADDRESSES SUSTAINABILITY OF DATABASES
A new report from a National Science Board task force calls on the
federal government to implement a clear and focused strategy to ensure
that growing collections of information in databases remain accessible
and easy to use in the coming years. The report argues that the
National Science Foundation (NSF), which has financed many
technological developments in recent years, has not crafted policies
and strategies that consider and address the range of technologies for
storing data. The report praises the improvements that have been made
to systems that collect various types of material in digital form and
make those materials widely available online, but it says the need is
"urgent" for a strategy to guarantee the viability of those materials.
The concern, according to the report, is that as technology platforms
continue to evolve, some digital content could be left in the lurch,
unable to be accessed by newer systems. The report makes a number of
recommendations for the NSF, including coordinating efforts between
data storage and users of those data, promoting effective training, and
supporting efforts to educate "a sufficient number of high-quality data
scientists" to manage such systems.
Inside Higher Ed, 13 October 2005
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/10/13/digital
EC PROPOSES INCREASED SPENDING ON RESEARCH
The European Commission has called for increased research spending at
universities and other research organizations, saying that Europe is
lagging behind the United States and Japan in such spending. According
to the proposal, spending on research should climb to 3 percent of GDP
by 2010, up from 1.9 percent in 2003. The report noted that U.S.
spending was 2.59 percent and that Japan spent 3.15 percent of GDP. The
report also cautions that countries such as China could surpass Europe
in research spending as a percentage of GDP, saying that increases in
research spending result in direct increases in GDP. Under the
proposal, which must be approved by European governments, more money
would be devoted to academic research projects and to partnerships
between industry and universities. Guenter Verheugen, EU industry
commissioner, said, "Every cent which goes into innovation and research
is a cent invested in jobs, growth and hence, our future."
San Jose Mercury News, 12 October 2005
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12883018.htm
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New from other sources:
First Million Dollar Download Of Music
"Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani is the first million dollar download
from such legal sites as iTunes, MSN, Napster, MusicMatch, Rhapsody,
Sony Connect, Wal-Mart, etc. Sales are still high at 15,000 per week.
The million sales mark should soon fall for the ringtone version, too.
The CD has already been certified as triple platinum.
The song is from her debut album "Love. Angel Music. Baby." This is
her first separate album from the supergroup "No Doubt."
Apple's iTunes has already recorded over half a billion downloads!
Source: www.digitalmusicnews.com etc.
[It is now accepted that people will actually download a million
copies of items offered via the Internet.]
*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
[As requested adding sources, etc., when possible.]
Holland Banning The Burka?
Rita Verdonk, Holland's hardline Integration Minister,
known as the Iron Lady for her hardline stances, simply
declined to meet with Muslim officials who who shake
hands with here as a result of their sexist views.
She current leads a Dutch movement to ban the burka
in some situations. In addition there is a current
lawsuit being filed by a woman who was refused a job
at the prestigious Muslim University in Amsterdam
because she refused to wear a headscarf.
A court case last year went against Muslim women who
had not been allowed to wear burkas during a social
work and childcare course. The court ruled that the
children should not be prevented from seeing who was
taking care of them.
Holland would become the first country in Europe to
ban the burka in specific situations in public, but
several major Belgian cities including Ghent, Antwerp
and others banned the public wearing of burkas and
have starting issuing hefty municipal fines.
Some Italian cities, such as Como, have have passed
laws banning the hiding of the face in public, and
are imposing fines for wearing Burkas as a result.
In addition, France and some of Germany have banned
the hijab headscarf in schools and public buildings,
this following similar measures in Tunisia and also
even reported in Turkey, a majority Muslim nation.
Sources: BBC, The Times and The Sunday Times
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1823334,00.html
BBC News via WILL AM radio, ~9AM, 10/17
[For centuries Holland has been the greatest example
of religious tolerance in the world, so this marks
a major historical change.]
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
The whole Valerie Plame finger pointing and no comments exercise.
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
10-20% of anorexics will die from it.
"The best estimates are around 10 percent of the women with anorexia
nervosa will ultimately die as a result of their illness."
Doug Bunnell
[Past. Pres. National Eating Disorders Association]
[Source: The Clarion-Ledger]
[I seem to recall an ABC TV news story saying it was 18%]
*STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"The new copyright laws have removed a thousands times as many
books from free circulation as all the book burnings in history."
Anonymous Source
*
"What is good for the country is good for General Motors,
and what's good for General Motors is good for the country."
Statement made in 1952 by Charles Erwin Wilson, the former head of
General Motors and Secretary of Defense under President Eisenhower,
to the Senate Armed Forces subcommittee.
*
"The chief business of the American people is business,"
President Calvin Coolidge
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
Wholesale prices rose 1.9% last month, the highest rate since the
first month of the 1990s. [The oddest thing about it all is that
most of the news services are telling us it doesn't mean anything.]
THE WASHINGTON POST, Wednesday, October 19, 2005
*
Only 8 of ~140 top CEO's are women.
NBC News, 10/17
*
We are out of names for tropical storms and hurricanes.
With 21 named storms already this year, the next one
will require us to start with the Greek alphabet:
alpha, beta, gamma, etc., which has never happened before.
[Not all letters are used, so X, Y, and Z, which would be
after the currently force 5 hurricane Wilma, would not be used]
Various sources.
*
Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries.
"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 America
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 think this is now much greater]
1 would be 79 years old or more.
Of those born today, the life expectancy is only 63 years,
but no country any longer issues copyrights that are sure
to expire within that 63 year period.
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.
*
POEM OF THE WEEK
She Loves Me Not
Summer loves me not
for I am the Fall girl
and even though we're sisters
I make her leaves tremble
and although she suffers from lost love
I am the one who cries her tears.
Summer loves me not.
She cherishes me.
Copyright 2005 by Simona Sumanaru and Michael S. Hart
Please send comments to: simona_s75 AT yahoo.com & hart AT pobox.com
***
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