I am sending this to BOTH the monthly and weekly Newsletter lists, and
apologize for any previous confusion between those lists:
Project Gutenberg Monthly Newlsetter <gmonthly@lists.pglaf.org>
Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter <gweekly@lists.pglaf.org>
If you appear on BOTH lists you may get two copies.
If you get NO copy next month, be sure you are on MONTHLY.
Let me know if you need info on subbing and unsubbing.
Happy New Year Everyone!!!
Michael
///
Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter
The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter, Dec. 21, 2008 eBooks Readable By
Both Humans And Computers Since 1971
I'm expecting a rather busy day the 21st, so I am doing as much of the
Newsletter half a day early as possible, so be forewarned, some of the numbers
may be a day late or early, depending on how you look at things.
Happy Holidays!!!
Give The World eBooks in 2009!!!
48 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012
[some now saying October 11, 2011]
This leaves 4 years. 16 seasons, or 48 months.
Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions.
New Project Gutenberg Landmarks and Headlines
The new goal is to put Spanish into our Top 5 list.
I desperately need some Spanish speaking people to help me!
We also officially passed 32,000 original Project Gutenberg eBooks this past
month, including all our usual listings.
This means the original Project Gutenberg editions now list as many titles as
the average U.S. public library.
Please note that PrePrints now has nearly 2,500 eBooks!!!
Well worth looking into:
http:www.preprints.readingroo.ms
We could use someone to write a piece about PrePrints.
We also need more help with the Chinese eBooks there.
The News In More Detail
The times are changing, and we can either lead or follow.
If we don't lead in the field of Chinese eBooks we follow-- and we are
starting a Project Gutenberg of Chinese, for all who may wish to get in on the
ground floor.
Believe it or not, Spanish is listed as the third language, with regard to its
use on the entire Internet so that's the next goal, to bring Spanish to out
Top 5.
In reference to that goal, I am giving a presentation for a new combination of
Internet efforts called Both Americas, in Buenos Aires early next Spring,
followed by what I would hope will be a similar conference in France. India
has had one or more problems with getting an actual invitation sent to me, and
since their current conference will be over less than a month from now, I will
not be able to attend even if such an invitation is issue at the last moment
unless it is of such an unusual nature that I can't turn it down and may have
to interrupt another trip I have now scheduled during, and including the same
period, the coming month.
This is the second time a conference hosted by people I had contact with in
India has not worked out due to inabilities to get things organized in a
manner that does not cost me a great deal of time and money, neither of which
I have great amounts of to invest in any but the wisest of manners.
I BRING THIS UP AGAIN BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HEARD MUCH LATELY!
HENCE MY NEED FOR ASSISTANCE WITH SPANISH!!!
I fear the conference in France may be headed the direction it was headed in
last year, much as did the other one I had mentioned above, but right now I
can't say for sure that it is either going to actually happen, or that I may
speak.
Something I should mention about possible conferences
If all the plans are not made, tickets purchased, arranged, etc., so that I
can at least expect to break even on trips, at least one month in advance, the
odds of my attending the conference fall very rapidly to zero. So far the
only ones keeping up their end of the bargain are the Both Americas hosting
the conference in Buenos Aires, so that appears the only conference I am
certain to attend in six months.
AND NOW THERE ARE DOUBTS ABOUT THAT!!!
Greg Newby and I have made an attempt to set up one of few, very few,
conference appearances with a joint presentation, but we haven't heard a word
back from that one either, so I won't even mention it at the moment.
Project Gutenberg just doesn't have the money for us to get to conferences
where we would lose money in the process.
Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!
FLASH RAM
I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.
The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc.
The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed
by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their
snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles.
POWERPOINT
We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.
One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.
Additional Newsletter Services
In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of
Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.
You should notice that we had a very good month, with 100 books done nearly
every single week.
These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at
http://www.gutenberg.cc
Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.
These are the various totals from the ~30,000 at
http://www.gutenberg.org
and our other Project Gutenberg Sites
This week:
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Sun 2008-12-14 | 6
Mon 2008-12-15 | 5
Tue 2008-12-16 | 9
Wed 2008-12-17 | 6
Thu 2008-12-18 | 8
Fri 2008-12-19 | 7
Sat 2008-12-20 | 10
Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!
Here are the current language totals
for languages with over 100 eBooks.
Grand total for today: 27,475 [- 27,188 ] +287
23,277 [ - 23,075 =] +202 English en
1,333 [ - 1,319 =] + 14 French fr
556 [ - 553 =] + 3 German de
480 [ - 476 =] + 4 Finnish fi
392 [ - 377 =] + 25 Chinese zh
370 [ - 361 =] + 9 Dutch nl
287 [ - 267 =] + 20 Portuguese pt
218 [ - 217 =] + 1 Spanish es
169 [ - 164 =] + 5 Italian it
Not to mention PrePrints, Canada, Australia, Europe....
Total increase +287 All Reported Languges
and from last month. . . .
Grand total for today 27,188 [ - 26,867 =] +321
23,075 [ - 22,863 =] + 212 English en
1,319 [ - 1,289 =] + 76 French fr
553 [ - 549 =] + 4 German de
476 [ - 470 =] + 6 Finnish fi
361 [ - 359 =] + 2 Dutch nl
377 [ - 359 =] + 18 Chinese zh
267 [ - 260 =] + 7 Portuguese pt
217 [ - 207 =] + 10 Spanish es
164 [ - 159 =] + 5 Italian it
etc.,etc.,etc.
Total increase + 321 All Reported Lanugages
Thanks to Greg Newby!
//////
And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide
27,475 + 287 112008 PG General Automated Count
1,723 + 6 111808 PG Australia
553 + 13 102108 PG Europe
2,494 + 33 102108 PG PrePrints
202 + 12 110908 PG Canada [Estimated]
======
32,447 + 349 by various automated counts and
newsletters
Note Without counting PrePrints, we are still about 30K, and some of the new
.lit collection will not make it under our current rules of addition from
PrePrints, and would be deleted from PrePrints without moving to other
listings.
The 307 Chinese eBooks in PrePrints will probably go, as a team of our best
Chinese workers says they are not worth a lot more time to work on, etc.
Note There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in
circulation from Project Gutenberg.
Note PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.
Here is how we ended 2007
The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161
titles.
The most number of books posted...
...in one day was 65 on the 26th December
...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May)
...in one month was 477 in November
We averaged
338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year]
78 per week
11.13 per day
99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system,
bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark.
Here is a small selection of project milestones;
TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about the number of books in
the average U.S. public library
32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints]
[And presuming 3 after official count]
32,000 on Calcuating
31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints]
30,000 on 20081021
29,500 on 20080919
29,000 ~~ Calculating
28,500 ~~ Calculating
28,000 ~~ 20080516
27,500 on 20080405
27,000 ~~ 20080229
26,500 on 20080126
26,000 on 20071224
25,000 on 20071012
24,000 on 20070710
23,000 on 20070415
PG-AU
1,700 on 20081010
1,600 on 20080208
1,500 on 20070407
PG Canada
175 on 20080930
100 on 20080325
110 on 20080417
**********************************************_
gmonthly mailing list
gmonthly@lists.pglaf.org
http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gmonthly
The big news this month is that Project Gutenberg has officially passed 30,000 original eBooks, bringing the the original Project Gutenberg editions to as many titles as the average U.S. public library.
27,188 (+212) 11/20/08 - PG General Automated Count
1,717 (+ 11) 11/18/08 - PG Australia
542 (+ 12) 10/21/08 - PG Europe
2,461 (+ 0) 10/21/08 - PG PrePrints
190 (+ 13) 11/09/08 - PG Canada
======
32,098 (+348) by various automated counts and newsletters
Another major landmark is that the number of books in the Chinese language has now passed Dutch to become the newest member of Project Gutenberg’s “Top 5 Languages”, with a total of over 375 books in the Gutenberg archives.
The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter, Nov. 21, 2008 eBooks Readable By
Both Humans And Computers Since 1971
By the time I wake up in the morning, it will be a time you usually expect The
Monthly Newsletter so I am doing my best to get everything done before going
to bed.
However, I should warn you that my arithmetic lost some
11 eBooks in the shuffle, as noted below, but I'm going have to send this out
as is and call it a day, as it is well after midnight here in Hawaii.
49 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012
[some now saying October 11, 2011]
This leaves 4 1/12 years, 16 1/3 seasons, or 49 months.
Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions.
New Project Gutenberg Landmarks and Headlines
We just passed 375 books in Chinese at:
http://www.gutenberg.org
and there are more at:
http://www.gutenberg.cc
After several years of making Chinese eBooks a top priority as a personal
project, Chinese just passed Dutch, to become the newest member of Project
Gutenberg's "Top 5 Languages."
The new goal is to put Spanish into our "Top 5 list."
We also officially passed 30,000 original Project Gutenberg eBooks this past
month, including all our usual listings.
This means the original Project Gutenberg editions now list as many titles as
the average U.S. public library.
Please note that PrePrints now has nearly 2,500 eBooks!!!
The News In More Detail
Chinese Moves Into The Project Gutenberg "Top 5"
More help needed to complete hundreds more Chinese eBooks.
As you will notice in the language list below, Chinese will apparently be
moving up to our 4th place language, counting non-English eBooks.
We still need more help in cataloging these eBooks, but the latest 300 or so
Chinese eBooks are now in PrePrints.
Anyone who can work in Chinese is encouraged to look into a directory called
/china in PrePrints, or get the .zip file, from one directory above to get all
the files downloaded in one single command.
http://preprints.readingroo.ms
first one on the list:
/china
.zip of whole bunch is one directory up, get china.zip
The current list, NOT counting the new 307 PrePrints:
Grand total for today: 27188 [Yesterday, officially]
23075 English en
1319 French fr
553 German de
476 Finnish fi
377 Chinese zh
361 Dutch nl
267 Portuguese pt
217 Spanish es
164 Italian it
When we get all 307 possible titles online, that will bring Chinese up to a
total of ~675 which will place it second of our non-English languages
collection which is approximately where it should go, given Internet language
dispersal.
The times are changing, and we can either lead or follow.
Believe it or not, Spanish is listed as the third language, with regard to its
use on the entire Internet so that's the next goal, to bring Spanish to out
Top 5.
In reference to that goal, I am giving a presentation for a new combination of
Internet efforts called "Both Americas,"
in Buenos Aires early next Spring, followed by what I would hope will be a
similar conference in France. India has had one or more problems with getting
an actual invitation sent to me, and since their current conference will be
over less than a month from now, I will not be able to attend even if such an
invitation is issue at the last moment unless it is of such an unusual nature
that I can't turn it down and may have to interrupt another trip I have now
scheduled during, and including the same period, the coming month.
This is the second time a conference hosted by people I had contact with in
India has not worked out due to inabilities to get things organized in a
manner that does not cost me a great deal of time and money, neither of which
I have great amounts of to invest in any but the wisest of manners.
I fear the conference in France may be headed the direction it was headed in
last year, much as did the other one I had mentioned above, but right now I
can't say for sure that it is either going to actually happen, or that I may
speak.
Something I should mention about possible conferences:
If all the plans are not made, tickets purchased, arranged, etc., so that I
can at least expect to break even on trips, at least one month in advance, the
odds of my attending the conference fall very rapidly to zero. So far the
only ones keeping up their end of the bargain are the "Both Americas"
hosting the conference in Buenos Aires, so that appears the only conference I
am certain to attend in six months.
Greg Newby and I have made an attempt to set up one of few, very few,
conference appearances with a joint presentation, but we haven't heard a word
back from that one either, so I won't even mention it at the moment.
Project Gutenberg just doesn't have the money for us to get to conferences
where we would lose money in the process.
Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!
FLASH RAM
I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.
The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc.
The earliest USB flash drives were Disgo/Dizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed
by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their
snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles.
POWERPOINT
We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.
One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.
///
Additional Newsletter Services
In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of
Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.
You should notice that we had a very good month, with 100 books done nearly
every single week.
These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at:
http://www.gutenberg.cc
Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.
These are the various totals from the ~30,000 at:
http://www.gutenberg.org
and our other Project Gutenberg Sites
[Yesterday's message, no mail coming in right now, but if I send this two
different ways, I think ONE of them will get to you.]
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Thu 2008-11-13 | 5
Fri 2008-11-14 | 8
Sat 2008-11-15 | 11
Sun 2008-11-16 | 11
Mon 2008-11-17 | 7
Tue 2008-11-18 | 2
Wed 2008-11-19 | 4
(
Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!
Here are the current language totals
for languages with over 100 eBooks.
[Again, from yesterday]
Grand total for today: 27,188 [ - 26,867 =] +321
23,075 [ - 22,863 =] + 212 English en
1,319 [ - 1,289 =] + 76 French fr
553 [ - 549 =] + 4 German de
476 [ - 470 =] + 6 Finnish fi
361 [ - 359 =] + 2 Dutch nl
377 [ - 359 =] + 18 Chinese zh [+307 PP]
267 [ - 260 =] + 7 Portuguese pt
217 [ - 207 =] + 10 Spanish es
164 [ - 159 =] + 5 Italian it
etc.,etc.,etc.
Total increase + 321 All Reported Lanugages
Thanks to Greg Newby!
And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide
27,188 + 212 11/20/08 PG General Automated Count
1,717 + 11 11/18/08 PG Australia
542 + 12 10/21/08 PG Europe
2,461 + 0 10/21/08 PG PrePrints
190 + 13 11/09/08 PG Canada
======
32,098 + 348 by various automated counts and newsletters
Nov 21 - Oct 21 = New
32,098 - 31,741 = 357 [Note Discrepancy of 11 eBooks]
Sorry, it's midnight plus here in Hawaii, too tired. . . .
Note: Without counting PrePrints, we are still under 30K, and some of the new
.lit collection will not make it under our current rules of addition from
PrePrints, and would be deleted from PrePrints without moving to other
listings.
Note: There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in
circulation from Project Gutenberg.
Note: PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.
///
Here is how we ended 2007
The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles.
The most number of books posted...
...in one day was 65 on the 26th December
...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May)
...in one month was 477 in November
We averaged
338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year]
78 per week
11.13 per day
99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing
us almost to the 2,000 mark.
Here is a small selection of project milestones;
TOTAL "Original Project Gutenberg eBooks" equals about the number of books in
the average U.S. public library
* 31,500 on 2008/10/21 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints]
* 30,000 on 2008/10/21
* 29,500 on 2008/09/19
* 29,000 ~~ Calculating
* 28,500 ~~ Calculating
* 28,000 ~~ 2008/05/16
* 27,500 on 2008/04/05
* 27,000 ~~ 2008/02/29
* 26,500 on 2008/01/26
* 26,000 on 2007/12/24
* 25,000 on 2007/10/12
* 24,000 on 2007/07/10
* 23,000 on 2007/04/15
PG-AU
* 1,700 on 2008/10/10
* 1,600 on 2008/02/08
* 1,500 on 2007/04/07
PG Canada
* 175 on 2008/09/30
* 100 on 2008/03/25
* 110 on 2008/04/17
**********************************************_
gweekly mailing list
gweekly@lists.pglaf.org
http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gweekly
During October Project Gutenberg Canada published a total of 13 eBooks bringing their total to 190 eBooks, which by the way, took Michael Hart’s Project Gutenberg twenty-three years to achieve!
LANGUAGES:
7 titles in English
5 in French
1 in German (the first title in that language!)
GENRES
4 history books and monographs
3 novels
3 books for children
2 biographical monographs
1 book of essays
Eight of this month’s eBooks were by Canadians. Seven of this month’s releases were non-fiction titles and PGCA has science, philosophy, and economics titles underway.
Here's the news from PG Canada for October.
We published a total of 13 ebooks during the month: we have now published a
cumulative total of 190 ebooks.
The New Releases section at the top of the PGC main page always gives the
details of new releases for the most recent three months.
LANGUAGES:
- 7 titles were in English
- 5 were in French
- 1 was in German: our first title in that language!
GENRES
- 4 were history books and monographs
- 3 were novels
- 3 were books for children
- 2 were biographical monographs
- 1 was a book of essays
Eight of this month's ebooks were by Canadians.
Seven of this month's titles were nonfiction: a majority of the ebooks
published. This is a very gratifying result: we want to ensure that there is
a place of honour in the PGC catalogue for non-fiction. Ebooks on science,
philosophy, and economics are currently underway.
Authors and illustrators new to PGC this month included:
Stockton, Frank Richard (1834-1902) [American author] Sulte, Benjamin (1841-
1923) [Historien canadien]
***************
PROJECT GUTENBERG OF AUSTRALIA
==============================
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER - NOVEMBER 2008
[includes details of ebooks placed online during October 2008]
Dear Avid Reader,
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright
laws for your country before downloading or redistributing ebooks mentioned in
this newsletter.
CONTENTS:
---------------------------------------
* News and Reviews
* Last month's postings
* Other Information (including details of how to unsubscribe)
NEWS AND REVIEWS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MILESTONES
----------
During October we reached a total of 1700 ebooks online at the PGA site. We
started online in August 2001. A big thank-you to all of the people who have
contributed books over the past seven years.
'SAPPER'
--------
'Sapper' was the pseudonym of Herman Cyril McNeile MC (1888-1937)
-- Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapper_(author)
The Wikipedia article states that "he was one of the most successful British
popular authors of the Interwar period" and that "his principal character was
Bulldog Drummond." The article goes on to state that "it is thought that
McNeile's first work was published before the First World War, but this is
difficult to verify as a serving officers in the British Army was not
permitted to publish under his own name."
McNeile was a man of his time and there is quite a lot of violence, racism and
'blokiness' in his books. We have a number of his ebooks at PGA which can be
accessed from http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-n-z.html#sapper including
several Bulldog Drummond stories.
McNeile wrote many short stories and in October we posted 'The Saving Clause'
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801151.txt a collection of 9 stories. All
begin with a compelling first paragraph and usually finish with a twist. The
book was first published in 1927 and was reprinted 14 times by 1935, so it was
certainly popular at that time.
My copy of the paper book is stamped 'RAAF Williamtown Officers Mess' and that
might be a good indication of McNeile's audience. The fact that the book
recently ended up in a charity sale of second hand books might be an
indication of changing taste in reading matter in the Officers Mess, over more
than half a century.
I read only the first story. It begins "I guess I don't hold with
missionaries..." and the hero takes 25 pages to tell us what his 'saving
clause' is; that is, his exception to the rule that he does not "hold with
missionaries." The story held my interest throughout, although the writing was
a little "overdone" for my taste. I guess that is an indication of his work
has dated. The Wikipedia article notes that "his writing caught the public
mood at the time--it was grimly realistic enough to seem authentic."
CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN
--------------------------
Coincidentally, at the time of planning this article, I received an ebook of
"The Dark Invader: War-Time Reminiscences of a German Naval Intelligence
Officer" by Captain Franz von Rintelen. I knew nothing of the book, so I did
some searching on the internet. It seems that von Rintelen was a spy for
Germany during World War I and this is the story of his activities during that
time.
There is a Wikipedia article on Von Rintelen at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Rintelen and an "advanced" search on
"von Rintelen" within ebooks at Project Gutenberg at
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/search revealed that he is mentioned in
a number of ebooks relating to World War I. As someone has already remarked,
it won't be long until all the knowledge in the world is available on the
internet.
You can read "The Dark Invader" at
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801121h.html
HELEN SIMPSON AND HENRY VIII
----------------------------
I have written before about Helen Simpson, in the September 2008 newsletter at
http://www.gutenberg.net.au/newsletters/200809-newsletter.html This current
piece is a review of a short biography of Henry VIII; Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII For those such as myself, who have
only a hazy idea of the life and times of Henry VIII and the circumstances
leading to the separation of the Anglican Church from Roman authority, this
book provides a clear explanation. Henry VIII, Wolsey, Cromwell, and the
wives--Jane, the Annes and the Catherines--are all on parade.
Interestingly and cleverly, Simpson sprinkles throughout the book quotations
from Machiavelli's "The Prince" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavelli
She explains in in the Foreword that:
"In a book of this length the writer must choose; he may record events or
interpret them. Either method has its pitfalls. For example, if the reign of
Henry VIII is told as a story, the central figure easily becomes an ogre,
moving through a succession of cruel caprices to an unregretted end. This is
to do a great King poor justice.
"It is more interesting, I think, to try his character and rule by a
touchstone, which comes irresistibly to hand when we remember that
Machiavelli's 'Prince' reached European statesmen somewhere about the year
1515. It is not my contention that Henry consciously took any part of his
policy from this book; but its brutally clear exposition of the art of
contemporary government allows a reader to understand by comparison where, and
why, he succeeded or failed.
"Only the chief incidents of this life and reign, therefore, are given, viewed
from the political perspective of the Florentine Secretary (Machiavelli).
Quotations from him are given in italics throughout."
This book was one of a series of short biographies commissioned by the
publisher Peter Davies Limited. At the end of the book are listed other titles
in the series, including Voltaire, Lenin, Ruskin and Macaulay. Each is written
by a different author. Most are still copyright in Australia, however, "Julius
Caesar" by John Buchan and "Mark Twain" by Stephen Leacock, are on my list to
look out for.
For those who will not be referring to this ebook on Henry VIII, in spite of
this overwhelmingly persuasive review, I include the following extract, which
provides a succinct summary of the situation in early 16th century England:--
"The King, knowledgeable in theology, had always been one of the Church's
champions. His book on the Sacraments, against Luther, had earned him the
title of Defender of the Faith. A few years later he received from Pope
Clement, for a token that he was regarded with friendship and gratitude by the
Holy See, 'a tree forged of fine gold, and wrought with branches, leaves, and
flowers, resembling Roses.' He was, besides, a man of pious practices, hearing
his three Masses a day even on hunting mornings. His jealousy for the good
name and fame of convents may be seen in his refusal to put the abbey of
Wilton in the hands of an unworthy woman, though she were of Anne's own
family.
"But once more care for his dynasty brought him conflict. It is interesting
(and quite useless) to speculate upon the fate of England had the little boy
lived who was born to Henry and Katherine and died in June 1511, and who was
mourned at Westminster with 432 pounds' weight of wax candles; or that other
son, born prematurely three years later. The whole coil has for origin the
King's fear lest, his issue failing and the pretenders loosed, England should
go back to barbarism and civil war. Once more, implacably, each succeeding
step follows the first. The divorce was necessary that he might have another
chance of a child. To obtain the divorce it was necessary to set aside the
Pope's brief; defiance of Rome's authority led to an assumption that such
authority was not valid; if the Pope were not Christendom's overlord, then he
need be paid no tribute; with Peter's Pence and Peter's thunder equally out of
the way, what need had the Church of any head other than Henry himself?"
AUSTRALIAN HUMOUR
--------------------
THE SHEARING OF THE COOK'S DOG
The dog was a little conservative mongrel poodle, with long dirty white hair
all over him--longest and most over his eyes, which glistened through it like
black beads. Also he seemed to have a bad liver. He always looked as if he was
suffering from a sense of injury, past or to come. It did come. He used to
follow the shearers up to the shed after breakfast every morning, but he
couldn't have done this for love--there was none lost between him and the men.
He wasn't an affectionate dog; it wasn't his style. He would sit close against
the shed for an hour or two, and hump himself, and sulk, and look sick, and
snarl whenever the "Sheep-Ho" dog passed, or a man took notice of him. Then
he'd go home. What he wanted at the shed at all was only known to himself; no
one asked him to come. Perhaps he came to collect evidence against us. The
cook called him "my darg," and the men called the cook "Curry and Rice," with
"old" before it mostly.
Rice was a little, dumpy, fat man, with a round, smooth, good-humoured face, a
bald head, feet wide apart, and a big blue cotton apron. He had been a ship's
cook. He didn't look so much out of place in the hut as the hut did round him.
To a man with a vivid imagination, if he regarded the cook dreamily for a
while, the floor might seem to roll gently like the deck of a ship, and mast,
rigging, and cuddy rise mistily in the background. Curry might have dreamed of
the cook's galley at times, but he never mentioned it. He ought to have been
at sea, or comfortably dead and stowed away under ground, instead of cooking
for a mob of unredeemed rouseabouts in an uncivilized shed in the scrub, six
hundred miles from the ocean.
They chyacked the cook occasionally, and grumbled--or pretended to
grumble--about their tucker, and then he'd make a roughly pathetic speech,
with many references to his age, and the hardness of his work, and the
smallness of his wages, and the inconsiderateness of the men. Then the joker
of the shed would sympathize with the cook with his tongue and one side of his
face--and joke with the other.
One day in the shed, during smoke-ho the devil whispered to a shearer named
Geordie that it would be a lark to shear the cook's dog--the Evil One having
previously arranged that the dog should be there, sitting close to Geordie's
pen, and that the shearer should have a fine lamb comb on his machine. The
idea was communicated through Geordie to his mates, and met with entire and
general approval; and for five or ten minutes the air was kept alive by
shouting and laughter of the men, and the protestations of the dog. When the
shearer touched skin, he yelled "Tar!" and when he finished he shouted "Wool
away!" at the top of his voice, and his mates echoed him with a will. A
picker-up gathered the fleece with a great show of labour and care, and tabled
it, to the well-ventilated disgust of old Scotty, the wool-roller. When they
let the dog go he struck for home--a clean-shaven poodle, except for a
ferocious moustache and a tuft at the end of his tail.
The cook's assistant said that he'd have given a five-pound note for a
portrait of Curry-and-Rice when that poodle came back from the shed. The cook
was naturally very indignant; he was surprised at first--then he got mad. He
had the whole afternoon to get worked up in, and at tea-time he went for the
men properly.
"Wotter yer growlin' about?" asked one. "Wot's the matter with yer, anyway?"
"I don't know nothing about yer dog!" protested a rouseabout; "wot yer gettin'
on to me for?"
"Wotter they bin doin' to the cook now?" inquired a ring leader innocently, as
he sprawled into his place at the table. "Can't yer let Curry alone? Wot d'yer
want to be chyackin' him for? Give it a rest."
"Well, look here, chaps," observed Geordie, in a determined tone, "I call it a
shame, that's what I call it. Why couldn't you leave an old man's dog alone?
It was a mean, dirty trick to do, and I suppose you thought it funny. You
ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the whole lot of you, for a drafted mob of
crawlers. If I'd been there it wouldn't have been done; and I wouldn't blame
Curry if he was to poison the whole convicted push."
General lowering of faces and pulling of hats down over eyes, and great
working of knives and forks; also sounds like men trying not to laugh.
"Why couldn't you play a trick on another man's darg?" said Curry. "It's no
use tellin' me. I can see it all as plain as if I was on the board--all of you
runnin' an' shoutin' an' cheerin' an' laughin', and all over shearin' and
ill-usin' a poor little darg! Why couldn't you play a trick on another man's
darg?...It doesn't matter much--I'm nearly done cookie' here now...Only that
I've got a family to think of I wouldn't 'a' stayed so long. I've got to be up
at five every mornin', an' don't get to bed till ten at night, cookin' an'
bakin' an' cleanin' for you an' waitin' on you. First one lot in from the
wool-wash, an' then one lot in from the shed, an' another lot in, an' at all
hours an' times, an' all wantin' their meals kept hot, an' then they ain't
satisfied. And now you must go an' play a dirty trick on my darg! Why couldn't
you have a lark with some other man's darg!"
Geordie bowed his head and ate as though he had a cud, like a cow, and could
chew at leisure. He seemed ashamed, as indeed we all were--secretly. Poor old
Curry's oft-repeated appeal, "Why couldn't you play a trick with another man's
dog?" seemed to have something pathetic about it. The men didn't notice that
it lacked philanthropy and logic, and probably the cook didn't notice it
either, else he wouldn't have harped on it. Geordie lowered his face, and just
then, as luck or the devil would have it, he caught sight of the dog. Then he
exploded.
The cook usually forgot all about it in an hour, and then, if you asked him
what the chaps had been doing, he'd say, "Oh, nothing! nothing! Only their
larks!" But this time he didn't; he was narked for three days, and the chaps
marvelled much and were sorry, and treated him with great respect and
consideration. They hadn't thought he'd take it so hard--the dog shearing
business--else they wouldn't have done it. They were a little puzzled too, and
getting a trifle angry, and would shortly be prepared to take the place of the
injured party, and make things unpleasant for the cook. However, he brightened
up towards the end of the week, and then it all came out.
"I wouldn't 'a' minded so much," he said, standing by the table with a dipper
in one hand, a bucket in the other, and a smile on his face. "I wouldn't 'a'
minded so much only they'll think me a flash man in Bourke with that theer
darg trimmed up like that!"
From: While the Billy Boils by Henry Lawson
http://freeread.com.au/ebooks/e00108.txt
LAST MONTH'S POSTINGS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A list of all the books we provide is available from
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Check there to see if there are other works by the authors listed below.
-- OCTOBER POSTINGS --
Oct 2008 The Gunner, Edgar Wallace [080126xx.xxx] 1708A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801261.txt or .zip
Oct 2008 Chick, Edgar Wallace [080125xx.xxx] 1707A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801251.txt or .zip
Oct 2008 She Devil, Robert Ervin Howard [080124xx.xxx] 1706A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801241.txt or .zip
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801241h.html
Oct 2008 The Man on the Ground, Robert Ervin Howard [080123xx.xxx] 1705A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801231.txt or .zip
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801231h.html
Oct 2008 Cupid vs Pollux, Robert Ervin Howard [080122xx.xxx] 1704A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801221.txt or .zip
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801221h.html
Oct 2008 Old Garfield's Heart, Robert Ervin Howard [080121xx.xxx] 1703A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801211.txt or .zip
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801211h.html
Oct 2008 Edgar Wallace by Himself, Edgar Wallace [080120xx.xxx] 1702A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801201.txt
Oct 2008 Henry VIII, Helen Simpson [080119xx.xxx] 1701A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801191.txt
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801191h.html
Oct 2008 The Devil Man, Edgar Wallace [080118xx.xxx] 1700A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801181.txt or .zip
Oct 2008 The Dark Eyes of London, Edgar Wallace [080117xx.xxx] 1699A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801171.txt or .zip
Oct 2008 The Finger of Fate, Sapper [080116xx.xxx] 1698A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801161.txt or .zip
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801161h.html
Oct 2008 The Saving Clause, Sapper [080115xx.xxx] 1697A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801151.txt or .zip
Oct 2008 A Knight of Spain, Marjorie Bowen [080114xx.xxx] 1696A
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0801141.txt or .zip
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With the introduction of the Stanza eBook reading application the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch have become major platforms on which to read eBooks. Since Stanza was released there have been several other eBook readers released for the iPod Touch allowing eBooks in many different file formats (including the ePub eBook standard) to be downloaded from any one of the many sources that have both free (public domain) and commercial eBook titles.
The goal of my own personal project is to provide Project Gutenberg eBooks formatted in the ePub eBook standard and make freely available from epubBooks.com. Because of this I knew I would need to test how my conversions look on an iPhone or iPod Touch, therefore I decided to purchase an iPod Touch.
I’m not a fanatic of Apple so as you can imagine, I wasn’t really expecting much from the iPod Touch other to test my ePub formatted books and listening to music.
I won’t go into too many details in this review about the different Apple apps available on the iPhone/Touch (there are already plenty of other reviews like that) as I want to keep this focused on the eBook aspects, specifically targeting Project Gutenberg fans.
During the review I will only be focussing on the iPod Touch but it must be noted that the Touch is exactly the same as the iPhone, just without the cellular phone abilities or persistent internet access. So anything that can be done with the iPod Touch should also be available on the iPhone.
pgmonthly_2008_09_16.txt
The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter, Sep. 21, 2008
****eBooks Readable by Both Humans and Computers since July 4, 1971****
http://www.gutenberg.org
NOTE: Best viewed with a fixed-width font, e.g. Courier New.
Windows Notepad is a good a program to use for viewing.
You may not have received this on time, due to problems with the mailer
program, and/or you might receive extra copies, as I am trying alternative
routes and CEO Newby may also try to send this out. My apologies. mh
50 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012
[some now saying October 11, 2011]
This leaves 4 1/4 years, 17 seasons, or 50 months.
Not to worry. I will still make predictions further on.
New Project Gutenberg Landmarks
We just passed 200 books in Spanish at:
http://www.gutenberg.org
and there are more at:
http://www.gutenberg.cc
Grand Total of About 30,000 Books made by Project Gutenberg
30,000 eBooks: About The Same As Average Public Libraries!
We are rapidly approaching 30,000 eBooks in the originating Project Gutenberg
collections, as differentiated from those eBooks originating with other eBook
producers located at an alternate site to the original
http://www.gutenberg.org, at http://www.gutenberg.cc which has over 75,000
eBooks.
We should pass 30,000 before the end of the year, as below.
Please note that PrePrints now has over 2,000 eBooks!!!
Chinese Moves Into The Project Gutenberg "Top 5"
As you will notice in the language list below, Chinese will apparently be
moving up to our 4th place language, counting non-English eBooks.
We still need more help in cataloging these eBooks, but the latest 300 or so
Chinese eBooks are now in PrePrints.
Anyone who can work in Chinese is encouraged to look into a directory called
/china in PrePrints, or get the .zip file, from one directory above to get all
the files downloaded in one single command.
http://preprints.readingroo.ms
first one on the list:
/china
.zip of whole bunch is one directory up, get china.zip
The current list, NOT counting the new 307 PrePrints:
Grand total for today: 26867 [Yesterday, mail problems]
22863 English en
1289 French fr
549 German de
470 Finnish fi
359 Dutch nl
344 Chinese zh
260 Portuguese pt
207 Spanish es
159 Italian it
When we get all 307 possible titles online, that will bring Chinese up to a
total of 666, which will place it second of our non-English languages
collection which is approximately where it should go, given Internet language
dispersal.
Please note that even without counting these 307, a Chinese eBook total is
already approaching that of Dutch, which has been in our Top 5 for years.
The times are changing, and we can either lead or follow.
Believe it or not, Spanish is listed as the third language, with regard to its
use on the entire Internet so that's the
next goal, to bring Spanish to out Top 5.
In reference to that goal, I am giving a presentation for a new combination of
Internet efforts called "Both Americas,"
in Buenos Aires early next Spring, followed by what I would hope will be a
similar conference in France. India has had one or more problems with getting
an actual invitation sent to me, and since their current conference will be
over less than a month from now, I will not be able to attend even if such an
invitation is issue at the last moment unless it is of such an unusual nature
that I can't turn it down and may have to interrupt another trip I have now
scheduled during, and including the same period, the coming month.
This is the second time a conference hosted by people I had contact with in
India has not worked out due to inabilities to get things organized in a
manner that does not cost me a great deal of time and money, neither of which
I have great amounts of to invest in any but the wisest of manners.
I fear the conference in France may be headed the direction it was headed in
last year, much as did the other one I had mentioned above, but right now I
can't say for sure that it is either going to actually happen, or that I may
speak.
Something I should mention about possible conferences:
If all the plans are not made, tickets purchased, arranged, etc., so that I
can at least expect to break even on trips, at least one month in advance, the
odds of my attending the conference fall very rapidly to zero. So far the
only ones keeping up their end of the bargain are the "Both Americas"
hosting the conference in Buenos Aires, so that appears the only conference I
am certain to attend in six months.
Greg Newby and I have made an attempt to set up one of few, very few,
conference appearances with a joint presentation, but we haven't heard a word
back from that one either, so I won't even mention it at the moment.
Project Gutenberg just doesn't have the money for us to get to conferences
where we would lose money in the process.
Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!
FLASH RAM
I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.
The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc.
The earliest USB flash drives were Disgo/Dizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed
by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their
snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles.
POWERPOINT
We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.
One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.
///
Additional Newsletter Services
In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of
Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.
You should notice that we had a very good month, with 100 books done nearly
every single week.
These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at:
http://www.gutenberg.cc
Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.
These are the various totals from the ~30,000 at:
http://www.gutenberg.org
and our other Project Gutenberg Sites
[Yesterday's message, no mail coming in right now, but if I send this two
different ways, I think ONE of them will get to you.]
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Mon 2008-10-13 | 8
Tue 2008-10-14 | 12
Wed 2008-10-15 | 4
Thu 2008-10-16 | 9
Fri 2008-10-17 | 5
Sat 2008-10-18 | 16
Sun 2008-10-19 | 10
Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!
Here are the current language totals
for languages with over 100 eBooks.
[Again, from yesterday]
Grand total for today: 26,867 [ - 26570 =] +297
22,863 [ - 22,670 =] + 193 English en
1,289 [ - 1,243 =] + 46 French fr
549 [ - 542 =] + 7 German de
470 [ - 464 =] + 6 Finnish fi
359 [ - 357 =] + 2 Dutch nl
359 [ - 320 =] + 39 Chinese zh [+307 PP]
260 [ - 253 =] + 7 Portuguese pt
207 [ - 202 =] + 5 Spanish es
159 [ - 155 =] + 4 Italian it
etc.,etc.,etc.
Total increase + 297 All Reported Lanugages
Thanks to Greg Newby!
And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide
26,867 + 297 10/20/08 PG General Automated Count
1,706 + 14 10/20/08 PG Australia
530 + 7 10/20/08 PG Europe
2,461 + 1,777 10/20/08 PG PrePrints
177 + 13 09/30/08 PG Canada
======
31,741 + 2,108 by various automated counts and newsletters
Note: Without counting PrePrints, we are still under 30K, and some of the new
.lit collection will not make it under our current rules of addition from
PrePrints, and would be deleted from PrePrints without moving to other
listings.
Note: There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in
circulation from Project Gutenberg.
Note: PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.
///
Here is how we ended 2007
The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161
titles.
The most number of books posted...
...in one day was 65 on the 26th December ...in one week was 151 in Week 18
(week ending 9th May) ...in one month was 477 in November
We averaged
338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year]
78 per week
11.13 per day
99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system,
bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark.
Here is a small selection of project milestones;
TOTAL "Original Project Gutenberg eBooks" equals about the number of books in
the average U.S. public library
* 31,500 on 2008/10/21 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints]
* 30,000 on 2008/10/21
* 29,500 on 2008/09/19
* 29,000 ~~ Calculating
* 28,500 ~~ Calculating
* 28,000 ~~ 2008/05/16
* 27,500 on 2008/04/05
* 27,000 ~~ 2008/02/29
* 26,500 on 2008/01/26
* 26,000 on 2007/12/24
* 25,000 on 2007/10/12
* 24,000 on 2007/07/10
* 23,000 on 2007/04/15
PG-AU
* 1,700 on 2008/10/10
* 1,600 on 2008/02/08
* 1,500 on 2007/04/07
PG Canada
* 175 on 2008/09/30
* 100 on 2008/03/25
* 110 on 2008/04/17
**********************************************_
gweekly mailing list
gweekly@lists.pglaf.org
http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gweekly
Here's the news from PG Canada for September.
We published a total of 13 ebooks during the month: we have now published a
cumulative total of 177 ebooks.
The New Releases section at the top of the PGC main page always gives the
details of new releases for the most recent three months.
LANGUAGES:
- 5 titles were in English
- 8 were in French
GENRES
- 7 of the books were novels (the 7 ebooks represented 5 novels, since we
published Henry Gréville's "Les Koumiassine" in two parts, and followed
the same course with "Le moulin Frappier").
- 1 was a children's book
- 1 was a collection of poems
- 1 was an issue of a literary magazine
- 3 were non-fiction: a collection of essays, a book of history, and a biography
One of PG Canada's objectives is to have a strong collection of ebooks in
French. We were delighted that this month an actual majority of the new
titles we offered are in French!
Five of this month's ebooks were by Canadians.
One of the highlights of the month was the completion of our collection of
major works by the eminent novelist, poet, dramatist, and translator
Pamphile Le May (1837-1918): we now offer no fewer than 18 of his works.
We published four novels in our continuing series of novels by
Henry Gréville (1842-1902).
Authors and illustrators new to PGC this month included:
Charlesworth, Hector Willoughby (1872-1945) [Canadian journalist and essayist]
Garneau, François-Xavier (1809-1866) [Historien et poète canadien] Graham,
George Rex (1813-1894) [Publisher]
***************
Thanks as ever for your support!
Mark
I had been reading some very interesting things about the BeBook eBook Reader, so when it arrived in the mail, I was not disappointed. On the surface this reader from Endless Ideas BV is pretty much the same as any other. However, once you start to get a little more involved you soon realise that this is a pretty cool device with some great features that make it stand out from the rest.
As with most E-Ink readers the BeBook also uses the newer Vizplex screen technology, which gives a much brighter and faster screen. To help in displaying your books it comes bundled with its own font which gives a very solid text.
There are the normal three sizes of fonts available, although this device implements them in a slightly different way to others. At the maximum zoom setting the display switches to landscape view – this actually makes sense. If you really need the maximum font size then viewing in landscape mode will actually give a more satisfying reading experience, very clever – and particularly useful for those technical PDF documents.
One of the most common issues people have when buying a dedicated reader is regarding eBook formats and whether they will still be able to read their purchases if they change devices in the future. Well, to help relieve these concerns Endless Ideas BV have not only enabled the BeBook to view MobiPocket [DRM protected] eBooks, but also EPUB, PDF, Microsoft LIT, CHM, HTML and a plethora of other formats. Giving you more choice in where you buy your books from.
With the introduction of the Stanza eBook reading application the Apple iPhone and