The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Jan. 21, 2010
eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971
REMINDER: We still need a probate lawyer!!!
A famous author wants to will us his entire works!!!
35 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring
on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011]
Leaving 2 years 11 months, 11 1/3 seasons or 35 months.
Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions,
such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021],
and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the
same time.
HEADLINE NEWS
BIG TROUBLE IN TERABYTEVILLE!
BIG PORTABLE POCKET USB DRIVE RECALL!
As I mentioned last month, the new pocket USB terabytes
came out last month, but apparently there has been some
huge problem with this, and I not only have not managed
to BUY one of these, I haven't even managed to SEE one!
I did get in touch with the Western Digital techies and
they did admit, after a little delay, that the drive is
no longer for sale, and I'm hardly sure it ever ways on
more than a very few days.
This would explain why ALL of the 89 hits I got just in
the week before had vanished when I wrote about this.
The results:
Not only is the $200 terabyte pocket USB drive not out,
but apparently this has also driven up the price of the
other larger pocket drives, though apparently not quite
all of them, as I have seen the smaller ones at the old
prices still on the shelf. I'm not going to name names
on places to buy, but the more upscale places are quick
to push their prices up and slow to bring them down and
the cheaper places seem to be more consistent on these.
APPLE SEEMS READY TO ANNOUNCE EREADER/TABLET
If you are an Apple watcher you know that they are very
secretive about their announcements, yet this time they
have made it pretty obvious that something is coming in
the next week and should be on the market in March.
Invitations have gone out for a major press conference,
and Apple seems to have ordered massive quanties of the
parts required to build such a gizmo.
However, unless it really has outrageous bells/whistles
on the order of iPods and iPhones it probably won't see
the same kind of reception, as Apple does not sell what
we call "computers" for under $999, and I'm betting the
price will be a factor. However, the iPhone trendiness
overcame this hurdle when they were $600 and required a
contract commitment, to boot, so you never know.
In Our Own News Bin
Project Gutenberg should be releasing the 26,00th eBook
in English about the time you are reading this:
http://www.gutenberg.org
FARTHER INTO THE FUTURE
As predicted: a year from now, in 2011, New York Times
will start charging a flat fee to anyone who reads more
than a minimum number of articles at nytimes.com
Watch out as the entire "Information Age" becomes quite
literally "The New Digital Divide" as everything costs,
as much as the market will bear.
As always with such things, no details were available--
not the price, not the minimal free number, or and kind
of guarantee that either number will not change sooner,
rather than later, after it all begins.
U.S. COPYRIGHT EXTENSIONS
Can anything be done to stop the next U.S. extension?
or
If not stop them, at least publicize them a little?
Suggestions are more than welcome.
I should add that this is probably a losing battle even
if it looks as if we are winning.
Here's why:
When the last Australian Copyright Act was discussed in
Parliament, they passed a resolution stating they would
NOT extend copyrights.
Really.
However, just three years later, under economic warfare
from, shall we just say, outside sources, they crumbled
to the pressure and gave in.
The Canadian Parliament is currently in that position--
and while some tell me they have enough signatures from
those against any extensions, I will bet you lunch that
they, too, crumble before it is over.
I would gladly lose every one of those wagers!!!
Further Information
As you may already know, any time the copyrights in the
characters Winnie the Pooh [1926], or The Mouse [1928],
start coming close to expiration The U.S. Congress will
be sure to start a very quiet frenzy of copyright bills
that are designed to go into effect before anything can
happen to those two copyrights.
As I understand it, Disney(R) made a huge lobby effort,
successful, to create the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act; paid
as a result an additional $200 million for the right to
another 20 years of Winnie the Pooh, and still made the
fabled laughing trip to the bank as a result, since the
effective date of 1978.
As a result I have to imagine their sales of The Mouse,
Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, etc., must have been predicted
to be so terribly large as to devour Avatar's gross.
Given that next bill passed right in the middle of what
must have been the busiest day in Congress for the last
few decades, the impeachment of President Clinton, this
means we should expect something of equal secrecy quite
soon, as the current copyright extension runs out 2018.
Usually they would make an effort to pass the new one a
session or two early, such as in 2016, but given that a
snag or two has hit before, we should probably look out
starting in 2015, though it will be hard to see.
Why?
Even during the election just before the last extension
I went to ask televised press conference questions on a
new U.S. Copyright Act I had heard about, but candidate
responses were uniform. . ."I know nothing."
I would have to expect that even if the big anchors ask
the same question in 2015 they will get that answer.
Or non-answer.
>/From what I have heard there is an ever larger movement
/to keep everything copyrighted permanently, and to make
all media as pay-per-view as possible, to the points of
making all broadcast television pay-per-view on a first
viewing premise [except public stations].
We are very likely to see a dissolving out boundaries--
cable products showing up on network television and the
opposite direction as well.
What else CAN we expect when Comcast cable has been the
allowed buyer of NBC?
If you think programming won't leak over:
Consider what happened when Disney took over ABC.
Not only did Disney flood ABC with their own programmed
output, but they killed off the best of all cartoons.
Anyone remember Reboot?
I can put you in touch with many copyright experts, and
I fear that all of them underestimate the power working
to make copyright permanent, in spite of the fact words
"limited time" are the U.s. Constitution's description.
However, the U.s. Supreme Court decided that limited is
really unlimited in "Eldred v Ashcroft."
Older News
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Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!
FLASH RAM
I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.
The ideal piece around which to center this collection is
one of the 8 megabyte USBs.
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.
We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash,"
for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample
of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under.
Thank you, Mate!
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.
These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at
http://www.gutenberg.cc
Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.
The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report
[As of about noon Central Daylight Time]
Various totals from the ~30,000 at
http://www.gutenberg.org
and our other Project Gutenberg Sites
Week up to the 21st:
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Thu 2010-01-14 | 8
Fri 2010-01-15 | 13
Sat 2010-01-16 | 16
Sun 2010-01-17 | 8
Mon 2010-01-18 | 12
Tue 2010-01-19 | 5
Wed 2010-01-20 | 11
Previous Month
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Mon 2009-12-14 | 11
Tue 2009-12-15 | 4
Wed 2009-12-16 | 4
Thu 2009-12-17 | 10
Fri 2009-12-18 | 7
Sat 2009-12-19 | 7
Sun 2009-12-20 | 9
Previous month:
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Sat 2009-11-14 | 6
Sun 2009-11-15 | 4
Mon 2009-11-16 | 6
Tue 2009-11-17 | 9
Wed 2009-11-18 | 3
Thu 2009-11-19 | 6
Fri 2009-11-20 | 5
Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!
///
Here are the current language totals
for languages with 200 or more eBooks.
Grand total for today: 30935
25995 English en
1547 French fr
628 German de
518 Finnish fi
459 Dutch nl
405 Chinese zh
391 Portuguese pt
274 Spanish es
230 Italian it
Compared to last month:
Grand total
25757 English en
1520 French fr
618 German de
515 Finnish fi
453 Dutch nl
405 Chinese zh
376 Portuguese pt
270 Spanish es
220 Italian it
Compared to previous month's:
Grand total for today: 30399
25587 English en
1498 French fr
614 German de
515 Finnish fi
451 Dutch nl
404 Chinese zh
371 Portuguese pt
268 Spanish es
218 Italian it
Previous increases:
+214
+205
+254
+281
+294
+287
All Reported Languges
Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe
Thanks to Greg Newby!
///
And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide
30,935 up from 30,613 up 322 PG General Automated Count
1,834 up from 1,830 up 4 PG of Australia
680 up from 664 up 16 PG of Europe
2,008 -- 2,008 up 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42?]
462 up from 436 up 26 PG of Canada
Posted #400 on October 10
July: 14 (Title 349 to 362)
August: 16 (Titles 363 to 378)
September: 17 (Titles 379 to 395)
October: 13 (Titles 396 to 408)
November: 9 [up to November 21]
December: 19[up to December 21]
======
35,919 up from 35,551 up 368
Last month:
35,551 up 240 [Not including Canada's illustrations]
35,311 up 235 [Including correcting above estimate by 2]
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 2009
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Wed 2009-12-30 | 9
Thu 2009-12-31 | 12
Fri 2010-01-01 | 6
Sat 2010-01-02 | 10
Sun 2010-01-03 | 2
Mon 2010-01-04 | 21
Tue 2010-01-05 | 5
Weekly Total 65
Grand total for today: 30761 from automated in house counter
25866 English en
1531 French fr
625 German de
517 Finnish fi
455 Dutch nl
405 Chinese zh
384 Portuguese pt
270 Spanish es
225 Italian it
etc.
30,761 Up 3,145 From 27,616 PG General Automated Count
1,830 Up 104 From 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia
675 Up 121 From 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe
468 Up 243 From 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated]
2,008 DN 423 From 2,431 PrePrints [Subtracted 307 Chinese eBooks]
====== ======
35,742 Up 3,190 From 32,552 Grand Total [Counting subtractions]
9.825 eBooks Per Day
68.773 eBooks Per Week
297.850 eBooks Per Month
///
Here is how we ended 2008
27,616 PG General Automated Count
1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia
554 Project Gutenberg of Europe
225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated]
[202 up to December, no current report]
2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111]
====== ======
32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints]
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 Calculating
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
///
Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year!
Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg
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