From hart at pglaf.org Wed Sep 20 09:40:57 2006
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Wed Sep 20 09:41:05 2006
Subject: [gweekly] Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0609200940280.10757@pglaf.org>
pt1a2.906
pt1b2.906
Weekly_September_20.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, September 20, 2006 PT1
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******
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
I'm likely to send this out a little early this week, just in case, as my
connection has gotten flaky a few times while editing this, and I am not
sure it will be good enough for fine tuning, not that I insist on a fine
tuning, you'll notice that I use statistics from several sources that
do not agree. . .even the counting of our eBook is off by a couple.
GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! at the New York Musical Theater Festival
By Anthony King and Scott Brown. Directed by Dave Mowers.
Starring Chris Fitzgerald ("Wicked" / "Fully Committed"),
Jeremy Shamos ("The Rivals" / "Reckless") and Matt Castle
(John Doyle's "Company")
Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450. So Bud
Davenport and Doug Simon wrote a musical about him and they're
bringing it to Broadway. They don't have a cast, a budget, or a
producer . . . but they have a dream!
"A surefire hit ... it's so bang on the money that, were I a
speculative type, I'd almost be tempted to invest," The Daily Telegraph.
Gutenberg! The Musical! is Bud and Doug's backers' audition: a
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talented new cast - we're bringing it home to New York.
"Utterly brilliant ... the funniest and cleverest spoof I've come
across ... Mel Brooks couldn't have done it better," Clive Davis.
Venue: Sage Theatre (711 7th Avenue, at Times Square).
6 performances only: Fri 22nd Sept (8pm), Mon 25th (4.30pm),
Wed 27th (8pm), Thu 28th (8pm) and Sat 30th (1pm and 4.30pm).
Running time: 90 minutes.
Tickets: $20.00.
To book: call 212-352-3101 or visit
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"Contains more wit and intelligence than three decades of megashows,"
Five Stars! The Times.
///
For now I am leaving PT1a and PT1b combined.
Please also let me know if you think these Newsletters are a waste of
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Thanks!
Michael
Some Suggestions We Received For The Newsletters
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Several people have merely suggested to other readers
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Divide the Newsletter in Web page URLs so the readers
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The Table of Contents.
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Redivide PT1 of the Weekly Newsletter into two parts.
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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
*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
Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter
Corrections in separate section
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones*
21,308 eBooks As Of Today At These Four PG Sites
19,297 Project Gutenberg US [+ 88] [NOT Including PG Australia]
1,287 Australian eBooks [+ 10] [NOT Included in above line]
350 Gutenberg Europe [+ 0] [NOT Included in above lines]
376 PG PrePrint Site [+ 0] [NOT Inclucded in above lines]
21,310 Grand Total [+ 99]
21,308 [by hand count] [+ 98]
[Please note we have several counting methods,
and they often differ by several book that we
have to hunt down by hand to reconcile.]
[Pleast note there is some duplication between
these various collections. Volunteers needed
to take these duplications into account.]
~13% of the way from 20,000 to 30,000
80,000+ eBooks at the PG Consortia Center
http://www.gutenberg.cc [160,000 files]
[Please note that the four collections totals are eBooks that originated
as created, edited, proofread, formatted, etc., by Project Gutenberg and
its 50,000 volunteers, while the Project Gutenberg Consortia Center with
80,000+ eBooks contains entire eBook collections from 100+ eLibraries so
the production statistics given here are for some 20,000+ eBooks created
by the various teams of Project Gutenberg volunteers, for which we share
the responsibility of maintaining. The Consortia Center eBooks were and
are the responsibility of the donating eLibraries, and we would be happy
to forward any suggestions for correction to those eLibraries, but those
eBooks must be edited by the donating parties, as per their requests.]
*
18,242 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's ~266 eBooks per Month for ~68.50 Months
3,162 New eBooks in 2006 at These Four Sites
28 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders
9,066 total from Distributed Proofreaders
Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B]
[Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers]
[Note, PGDP mostly included in US eBooks]
[Note, PGEU has its own Distributed Proofreaders
whose total closely matches their grand total]
We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005
[Including PG Australia]
We Are Averaging ~372 eBooks Per Month This Year!!!
[Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints]
All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 85 eBooks Per Week In 2006
99 This Week
121 Last Week
220 This Month [Sep]
[Aug. was one of those months with 5 Wednesdays; our work week
runs from about noon Wednesday, Eastern Time Zone, for 7 days]
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~12.5 years from Jan. 1994 to Jun. 2006 to go from 100 to 20,100
It took ~32 months, from 2003 to 2006 for our last 10,000 eBooks
It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100
It took ~2.8 years from Oct. 2003 to Jun. 2006 from 10,000 to 20,000
It took ~2.3 years from Jan. 2004 to Aug. 2006 from 11,000 to 21,000
Not counting the addition of The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center
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and will likely be moved to other collection points later.
The entire process of working out the details just to send
them to the PrePrints Section took well over a month.
Even with the speeded up process of the PrePrints Section,
it still takes a certain amount of time to collect and put
such a large collection online in a proper manner.
*
***Introduction
[Ignore for the moment]
[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:
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This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
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http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk or http://www.dolphinusa.com
***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B***
pt1a2.906
pt1b2.906
Weekly_September_20.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, September 20, 2006 PT1
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 08.50 months of this year, PG produced 3,162 new eBooks.
It took us from Jul 1971 to Apr 2002 to produce our first 3,162 eBooks!
That's 37 WEEKS as Compared to ~31 Years!!!
121 New eBooks This Week
85 New eBooks Last Week
121 New eBooks This Month [Sep]
372 Average Per Month in 2006
266 Average Per Month in 2005 Counting 216 PGEu
248 Average Per Month in 2005 Not Counting PGEu
336 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
3162 New eBooks in 2006
3186 New eBooks in 2005 Counting 216 PGeu
> 2970 New eBooks in 2005 Not Counting PGEu
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
18,242 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 68.50 Months!
~266 books per month!
21,310 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
17,167 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,143 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
[Incl. PGAu, PGEu & PrePrints]
1,287 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
[This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted
at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ]
350 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Europe
376 Items in Project Gutenberg PrePrints
~80,000 Project Gutenberg Consortia Center
http://www.gutenberg.cc
[~160,000 files at about 2 files pers book]
You may also want to look at Project Runeberg [Scandinavian eBooks]
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Project Gutenberg began operation on July 4, 1971
Project Runeberg began operation on December 13, 1992
Distributed Proofreaders began October 22, 2000
[Became an official PG-US site in 2002]
Project Gutenberg of Australia began in August, 2001
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center started in 1997]
[Became an official PG-US site in 2003]
Project Gutenberg of Europe started January 12, 2004
[Posted first books February 26, when we met in Brussels
to address people at the European Union Parliament.
Project Gutenberg PrePrints Started January 25, 2006
http://preprints.readingroo.ms
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PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:
Since starting production in October 2000,
Distributed Proofreaders has contributed
9,066 Books to Project Gutenberg.
28 added this week.
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
The PGCC collection at http://www.gutenberg.cc has doubled
in size from the listings below, but we don't have exactly
matching collection sizes yet for a new breakdown.
There are ~160,000 separate downloadable files,
and presuming 50% are reduntant or are required
at the level of more than one file per book:
The number of individual eBooks now is about 80,000.
Thus the grand total of eBooks at Project Gutenberg
is 21,000+ created by Project Gutenberg volunteers,
plus 80,000 donated from over 100 other eLibraries,
to create a downloadble library of 100,000+ eBooks
plus 80,000 donated from over 100 other eLibraries,
to create a downloadble library of 100,000+ eBooks
!
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PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings
of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as:
[This list is being updated as the moment, you can get
the entire list on the collections pages at gutenberg.cc]
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] <<<
Literal Systems Collection, 68 MP3 eBook Files
Logos Group Collection, ~34,000 TXT eBook Files
Poet's Corner Poetry Collection, 6,700 Poetry Files
Project Gutenberg Collection, 15,035 eBook Files
PGCC Chinese eBook Collection ~300 eBook files <<< Note Name Change
Renascence Editions Collection, 561 HTML eBook Files
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
If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
~34,286 Unique eBooks
*
The new overall collection size, which has reduced the
need to account for duplications and eBooks with files
for each chapter, etc.
80,000+ Unique eBooks
***
Please also note that over 25,000 eBooks are listed via
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In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar
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any current information.
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 #259 of 2006
This Completes Week #37 and Month #08.50 [364 days this year]
105 Days/18 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
8,690 Books To Go To #30,000
We are 13% of the way from 20,000 to 30,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
85 Weekly Average in 2006
61 Weekly Average in 2005 [Counting 216 PGEu]
57 Weekly Average in 2005 [Not Counting PGEu]
78 Weekly Average in 2004
79 Weekly Average in 2003
47 Weekly Average in 2002
24 Weekly Average in 2001
52 Only ~42 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers List
[Used to be well over 100]
[This listing usually from the previous week]
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Statistical Review
In the 37 weeks of this year, we have produced 3162 new eBooks.
It took us from 07/71 to 02/04 to produce our FIRST 1623 eBooks!!!
That's 34 WEEKS as Compared to ~31 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #3063
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 are now in new catalog format]
Apr 2002 The Enchanted Typewriter, by John Kendrick Bangs 2[nctypxxx.xxx] 3162
Apr 2002 Narrative of New Netherland, by J. F. Jameson, Ed.[nwnthxxx.xxx] 3161
[Original Title: Original Narratives of Early American History]
[Title AKA: Letters Of The Dutch Ministers To The Classis Of Amsterdam]
Apr 2002 The Odyssey of Homer, Alexander Pope, Tr. [dyssyxxb.xxx] 3160
(Also see: #1728)
The Hermit of Far End, by Margaret Pedler 3159
Apr 2002 Our American Cousin, by Tom Taylor [ouamcxxx.xxx] 3158
(Note: This is the play US President Lincoln was watching when he was
assassinated on Apr 14, 1865.)
Apr 2002 The Path of Empire, by Carl Russell Fish [tpempxxx.xxx] 3157
[Title: The Path of Empire, A Chronicle of the United States as a
World Power]
Apr 2002 Andrea Delfin, by Paul Heyse [Michael Pullen, Tr.][phadexxx.xxx] 3156C
She, by H. Rider Haggard 3155
The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Rudolph Erich Raspe 3154
The Virgin of the Sun, by H. R. Haggard 3153
Apr 2002 The Junior Classics, V1, Willam Patten, Editor [1jrclxxx.xxx] 3152
Apr 2002 The City of Domes, by John D. Barry [domesxxx.xxx] 3151
[Subtitle: A Walk with an Architect About the Courts and Palaces of the
Panama Pacific International Exposition with a Discussion of Its
Architecture - Its Sculpture - Its Mural Decorations Its Coloring - And
Its Lighting - Preceded by a History of Its Growth]
(Also see the other Project Gutenberg eBooks about the 1915 Panama Pacific
(Exposition in San Francisco, eBook #'s 7411, 6631, 5771, 5712, 5620, 4672)
Mar 2002 Human Nature and Other Sermons by Joseph Butler [hmntrxxx.xxx] 3150
Mar 2002 Marm Lisa, by Kate Douglas Wiggin[Kate Wiggin #17][mrmlsxxx.xxx] 3149
Mar 2002 A Village Stradivarius, by Kate Douglas Wiggin[16][vllstxxx.xxx] 3148
Mar 2002 A Summer in a Canyon, by Kate Douglas Wiggin [#15][smcanxxx.xxx] 3147
[Title: A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story]
Mar 2002 Two on a Tower, by Thomas Hardy [Thomas Hardy #17][twtwrxxx.xxx] 3146
Mar 2002 The Author of Beltraffio, by Henry James[James#41][atblfxxx.xxx] 3145
Mar 2002 Froude's History of England, by Charles Kingsley11[frdhexxx.xxx] 3144
Mar 2002 Sir Walter Raleigh and His Times, by Kingsley[#10][srwalxxx.xxx] 3143
[Author: Charles Kingsley]
Mar 2002 Plays and Puritans, by Charles Kingsley[Kingsley9][plpurxxx.xxx] 3142
Mar 2002 Irish Race in the Past and the Present, by Thebaud[irishxxx.xxx] 3141
Mar 2002 Idle Ideas in 1905, by Jerome K. Jerome [JKJ #27][idlidxxx.xxx] 3140
Mar 2002 The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, by Charlotte Yonge#7[dvegnxxx.xxx] 3139
Mar 2002 Ballads in Blue China, by Andrew Lang [Lang #30][blchnxxx.xxx] 3138
/
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet?
If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,545,310,397 that would be 21,310 x 65,453,104 = ~1.39 Trillion !!!
With 21,310 eBooks online as of September 20, 2006 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.72 from each book.
[1% world population x #eBooks] 65,453,104 x 21,310 x $.72 = ~$1 Trillion
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
[By the way, the US "popclock" is about to turn to 300 million people.]
[Just turning 299.8 million this week!]
A Trillion Dollars Given Away At Just $.47 Value Per Book To 100 Million
With 21,310 eBooks online as of September 20, 2006 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.47 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.58 when we had 17,167 eBooks a year ago.
[This is not counting the ~80,000 eBooks at http://gutenberg.cc which are
counted and maintained separately by their donating electronic libraries]
Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population = ~100 million people.
Next Decade's Target: 15% Of The world Population = 1 billion !!! people.
At 21,310 eBooks in 35 Years and 02.50 Months We Averaged
605 Per Year
50 Per Month
1.66 Per Day
At 3162 eBooks Done In The 259 Days Of 2006 We Averaged
12.2 Per Day
85 per Week
372 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.
However, for those keeping track of how quickly the U.S. reaches a
300 million population level, and who noticed the passing of 299M,
just two weeks ago. . .the U.S. is already 80% the way to 300M, so
it will probably be 2 more weeks to 300M.
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].
*
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 4th was
the first Wednesday of 2006, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2005 and began the production year of 2006 at noon.
This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B***
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
RESEARCHERS ANNOUNCE NEW CHIP TECHNOLOGY
Researchers at Intel and the University of California, Santa Barbara,
have developed a new kind of computer chip that transfers data between
chips using lasers instead of wires, which have long been a bottleneck
in computing. Fiber-optic technology allows data to travel very fast
over long distances, but data-transfer rates remain a function of how
quickly data can travel over wires from chip to chip. The new
technology combines a silicon-based processor with a layer of
light-emitting indium phosphide. The result, said researchers, could be
an astounding increase in the speed at which data can travel. Such a
breakthrough could allow computer scientists to rethink how computers
fundamentally work and what they are capable of. For example, the new
chips, which could cost a few dollars, could deliver data-transmission
speeds 100 times faster than today's optical transceivers, which cost
several thousand dollars. The new technology is not expected to make
its way into commercial products before the end of the decade.
New York Times, 17 September 2006 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/technology/18chip.html
COURT IN BELGIUM ORDERS GOOGLE TO STOP REPOSTING NEWS
A Belgian court has ordered Google to stop using news stories from a
number of French-language newspapers on its Web site. An organization
called Copiepresse, which manages copyright for French and German
newspapers in Belgium, had complained that Google does not ask
permission to use the papers' content, nor does it reimburse the
papers, even though Google sells advertising and makes money from the
content it posts on its site. The court agreed and ordered Google to
stop using the disputed news articles. If Google does not comply, it
will be subject to a fine of US$1.3 million per day. Margaret Boribon,
general secretary for Copiepresse, said she would inform other news
organizations in Europe of the decision, which might allow them to
pursue similar injunctions in other markets.
CNET, 18 September 2006
http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6116591.html
NCSU PROFESSOR SUSPENDS SALES OF LECTURES
A communication professor at North Carolina State University (NCSU) has
suspended his practice of selling audio recordings of his lectures over
the Web after administrators raised questions about the practice.
Robert Schrag had been selling lectures since August for $2.50 each
through a Web site called Independent Music Online. Despite having
received approval from the head of his department to sell the lectures,
Schrag agreed to stop selling the MP3 files, at least temporarily,
after Toby Parcel, dean of the College of Humanities and Social
Sciences, expressed concerns about the appropriateness of the practice.
At NCSU, faculty own the course materials they produce, but some
students had objected to Schrag's selling his lectures, saying that
they should be available free for students. Schrag disagreed, saying
that tuition for the course does not necessarily cover such materials
as recordings of lectures. He said the recordings are intended for
motivated students who want to review materials after class, students
for whom English is not their first language and would benefit from
hearing lectures again, and students who would rather skip class.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 September 2006
http://chronicle.com/free/2006/09/2006091501t.htm
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*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
I suppose at least some of the mention hasa to go to Pope
Benedict for his non-apology apologies.
*QUOTES OF THE WEEK
Pope Benedict said,
"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there
you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
However, he was actually quoting a Christian Emperor from around
the times of The Crusades, though I know know which one.
[I found one reference to the Byzantine Emperor Manual II]
Later the Pope apologized for the effect of his comments,
but apparently not for making them, tho I can't find all
the exact words he used.
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
The US population will hit 300 million in the next few weeks.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
1/6 of the entire United States GDP is health care,
yet the United States is the ONLY developed country
without a universal health care program. 47 million
are totally uninsured, out of 300 million.
*
By the way, for those interested, the official U.S. population
estimates just passed 299 million, though many say estimations
of this nature leave out as much as 5% of the population, with
the obvious exclusion of the 11-12 million immigrant workers
now being mentioned so much in the news.
Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries.
[This one is getting a little out of date, as the US population
is obviously no longer 6% of the world. In fact, rounding to the
nearest percent, the US will soon fall from 5% to 4%.]
"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.
*
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pgweekly_2006_09_20_part_1.txt
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