Category Archives: project gutenberg

In Protest Of SOPA And PIPA

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This blog will go dark tomorrow to protest crimes perpetrated by people who know all about the internet aided by their toadies in government who know nothing of it.

From SOPAStrike.com:

On Jan 24th, Congress will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill – PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House – to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity. We need internet companies to follow Reddit’s lead and stand up for the web, as we internet users are doing every day.

As a scientist and representative of Project Gutenberg, i.e. an internet user, I stand against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its more insidious older twin, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) winding their ways through Congress.

DMCA, ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, whatever you want to call it, extended copyright terms and draconian terms of punishment for use violation are not the worst the state of intellectual property has come to. Every single day, books, art and scientific results that belong to the public domain are actively stolen away from us, turned into copyrighted product and then “protected from theft” with the help of those elected to represent us in government. This is a serious breach of the social contract and absolute proof that our congresspeople have been bought. They now represent other constituents that go by MPAA, RIAA, IFPI and AAP.

Keep information free, especially that which was free to begin with, and help break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy. Join the fight against SOPA and PIPA. It’s going to be a long one.

Sharing eBooks

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Today’s xkcd:

I’ve lost grey matter beating my head on the walls of this blog and elsewhere on the internet that the advent of eBooks does not signal or signify the death of paper books, nor should it. Anyone who wants paper books to go away is in the business of reading for the sake of technology and not access. With that in mind, it is sad that there are many in this nation, especially librarians, who consider a potential decline in the number of paper books or “the death of print” as a widening of the digital divide. They are right and wrong.

Let’s look at how they are wrong first: Think beyond America (few do) and the number of people across the world we cannot ship physical books to or books that are not printed in their language. With cheap cellphones and pricing plans everywhere in the world except this country, eBooks are made more accessible anywhere you can get a cellphone signal. Now that is access. The digital divide closes. Now, look back at America. We are a nation that takes expensive technology as a given and works for change from that premise. I think we need to take a step back and look at how we consume and address (read: fight) our own patterns of consumption before we cry about how others cannot consume the same way. For instance, I will never buy a Kindle (single function) and truly question the purchase of eBooks for an iPad or similar device. More about this in a little bit.

How they are so, so right: Access to paper and electronic books in the US is a hot, confusing, expensive mess. Most libraries are woefully underfunded and understocked and the stacks of most university libraries are off-limits to the uninitiated, in many cases taxpayers who paid for them in the first place. And why in the name of everything right and sweet are new paperbacks almost $10 a piece, forget larger paperbacks for $14.99 and hardbacks upwards of $40? So, if getting to paper books is this hard, think how much more of a barrier there is is for the average American to get to electronic books. American internet and cellphone plans are the epitome of price-gouging and, in this economy, the first things to be cancelled when drawing up a budget. Following that, unless you plan to read only free, public-domain eBooks for the rest of your life, the pricing structure for for-sale eBooks is completely bogus. Up to $15 for a new eBook – they have to replant more electrons, you see – and don’t give me all that about having to pay the authors and editors because y’all know how much you were paid for paper copies of your books back when. The big honking cherry on top is the question of ownership and sharing. This brings me back to the point earlier in this post when I questioned the purchase of eBooks for any reader.

Is my purchased eBook really mine? In other words, can I do whatever I want with it, including giving it to a friend after I’ve finished reading it without giving away my reader with it? I recently stumbled across librarian Bobbi Newman’s really cool blog and am absolutely intrigued by the notion of checking out your local library’s electronic copy of a book on your reader. How many libraries do this? But, more importantly, when can we do this between my iPad and your Kindle? When can I give you my eBook that I bought for $14? And will a SWAT team come crashing into my house Brazil-style and cart me away to Penguin-Knopf Prison Cell Block C because, somewhere in the fine print of all the legalese surrounding the purchase of an eBook, it says I cannot give you my eBook as I would have my paper copy? Again, if the process is this difficult for me to understand, a technologist who works with Project Gutenberg, to fathom, how much harder is it someone who simply wants to read a book, not pay a fortune for it, actually own it and maybe give it away when done with it? Note that I did not even get into how you have to purchase an expensive eReader first (and its attendant DRM agreements with the providers of every chunk of content you put into it) before you go about borrowing library eBooks.

Yes, I can see how the digital librarians worry. But, I wish they, especially the more high-profile ones, would speak out more and louder against the dictates of the publishing and telecommunications industries instead of taking them as a given. We need less gatekeepers and more gatecrashers.

At the time of this writing, I am considering attending Books In Browsers 2011 as a PG representative, where I hope to learn a lot more about the current state of eBooks and generate ideas to increase access to electronic and paper books. Literacy creates opportunity.

Related Reading: Library Pirates Unlock Rented Digital Textbooks, Take Aim at Publishers

My Eulogy For Michael Stern Hart

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I promised I’d see him through to the end. He wasn’t there any more, but being a pallbearer was my way of keeping that promise. In case I tripped and fell while carrying the substantial coffin, I asked our friend Ben Stone to be on standby. Ben, “Surprisingly, they’re not that heavy. The important part is gone.”

This is what I read to the group of family and friends gathered at the memorial service on Monday. It is granted to the public domain by its author, Maitri Erwin.

***

Let me start by saying that if there was anything Michael disliked, it was wasting precious time celebrating and eulogizing the dead. With that said, let’s celebrate and eulogize Michael Stern Hart.

I’ve known Michael for exactly nineteen years. When we first met, I had just moved to the United States after enormous physical and emotional upheaval. The person that Michael came across at that time was smart, different and very, very angry. Smart was good, different was better, but Michael had no use for static anger. I can still hear him asking, “What are you going to do about it?” And it was through Michael that I was re-introduced to my basic humanity and my capacity to do good from a desire to change. Michael Hart helped me change my life.

“When in Rome, be a Roman candle.” Never be afraid to change the circumstances in which you find yourself.

Michael was one big dynamo of an unreasonable person. Can I get an Amen? [Even the pastor didn't get an "Amen" as loud as that response, by the way.] Well, so am I. The constructive interference of the two personalities wasn’t always … constructive, but Michael and I never parted ways mad because, from the very beginning, we were on the same side, no matter what.

The side which counts success as moving up and on yourself, not pushing others down to look better in comparison. The side which sees wealth in giving knowledge away, not in hoarding it or in money and stuff. The side which recognizes that in order to give knowledge away, you’ve got to work hard everyday to make sure you have more of it. The side of energy, fire, change.

Thank you, Michael, for teaching me how to get the most out of a university, for the hundred Socratic arguments, for the endless frisbee games, for sugar on Garcia’s pan pizza and for seeing me in me.

As for more of Maitri-kind, they’re coming. I’m just sorry that they won’t get to meet you. But, hey, you will make for great bedtime stories.

I’d like to close with words from The Little Prince, which he read to me one afternoon. From the eBook, of course, because it tickled him that I read books on my iPhone.

“Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has– yes or no?– eaten a rose …

“Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes…

“And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!”

***

I miss you, Michael. Got your back.

Michael Hart Remembered Online – UPDATED

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This post serves as a roundup of good online articles on and tributes to Michael S. Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg and close friend, who passed away two days ago. If you come across any that are not here, please link to them in the comments. So much love ad respect out there for Michael; it amazes me to see how many lives he touched and changed. Thank you all for remembering him in so honest a manner.

Computerworld UK “Fortunately, Project Gutenberg, which continues to grow and broaden its collection of freely-available texts in many languages, stands as a fitting and imperishable monument to a remarkable human being who not only gave the world great literature in abundance, but opened our eyes to the transformative power of abundance itself.”

Cult of Mac “If you have ever downloaded an ebook of any sort, from any source, you have Hart to thank for his pioneering work in the field.”

Brewster Kahle “A special man, a guiding light, a good friend. I miss him.   Lets build that billion book library that he is dreaming of.”

MetaFilter (gods, the wonderful comments on this one) “The Internet needs more people like this and less like thi$.”

Tim O’Reilly “#ebook pioneer Michael Hart, founder of the Gutenberg Project, died yesterday. Anyone who’s read a book online owes him.”

More:

Nat Torkington “I learned how hard it is to be a pioneer: doing work that others don’t value is thankless and marginalizing. I learned how hard it is when others eventually follow you: they don’t value what you’ve done nearly as much as they should … I learned to be generous with my time. I learned that sugar on pizza is a taste it takes longer than one day to acquire.”

eBook Newser

The Rumpus “I have more Project Gutenberg files on my e-reader than I do of all other types combined, and I doubt I’m alone in that.”

Boing Boing

Geekosystem “While his work is often eclipsed by the sleeker, sexier [$$$] offerings through the Amazon and iTunes eBook stores, his aspirations were of the highest order.”

Slashdot From the comments: “… our opinions on methods often clashed, but I have no doubt that he sought to serve humanity to the best of his ability, and especially to bring knowledge and opportunity to everyone in the world – without exception. He strove mightily to break down the barriers to knowledge, and to dethrone the gatekeepers who seek to prevent ordinary people from joining the company of the elite.”

Guardian UK

TechWorld “Hart’s work on Project Gutenberg can be seen an attempt do ‘something right’: Within the constraints imposed by national laws — the ludicrous Mickey Mouse Protection Act, for example — Project Gutenberg endures and continues its work of freely disseminating knowledge and challenging illiteracy.”

Michael Stern Hart, 1947-2011

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Dinner, ca. 2000 . Copyright CC BY-NC-SA Maitri Erwin

Founder of Project Gutenberg, Michael Hart, passed away unexpectedly at his home in Urbana, Illinois yesterday. The world has lost a true renaissance man, the one who first gave us the gift of electronic books (eBooks). I have lost my oldest friend and confidant in these United States.

Read Michael’s obituary, wonderfully written by Greg Newby, CEO of Project Gutenberg.

My heart is in a million pieces and my brain equally scattered, and with all the words I come up with for the most pedestrian of things, I’d like to be more together and present when writing about Michael. To say he was an iconoclast, inspired me and was a crucial ingredient in the brazen, outspoken human I am today doesn’t even begin to cover it. Michael showed me what the internet could do, but more importantly, he gave it back to you and millions and millions of others, its rightful owners.

This is one of the last things Michael reiterated to me recently, “We only rise above mediocrity when there’s something at stake, and I mean something more consequential than money or reputation.” So, if I am happy and proud today, it’s because Michael will live on forever through Project Gutenberg and every spark, idea and changed life that has come from it. If I am also devastated and horribly angry, that comes from the fact that there are simply not enough people in the world like him. You and I may be clever, but Michael was a doer who DID. He changed the world forever. What I love him for the most is he would kick my behind for this negativity. And so I say, we are all – each and every one of us – Project Gutenberg. We will continue to break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.

As Greg says in the obit,

Michael S. Hart left a major mark on the world. The invention of eBooks was not simply a technological innovation or precursor to the modern information environment. A more correct understanding is that eBooks are an efficient and effective way of unlimited free distribution of literature. Access to eBooks can thus provide opportunity for increased literacy. Literacy, the ideas contained in literature, creates opportunity.

Michael is remembered as a dear friend, who sacrificed personal luxury to fight for literacy, and for preservation of public domain rights and resources, towards the greater good.

Funerals are not for the dead but for the survivors. I don’t mourn Michael, for he would not want for us to do that, but I do mourn the loss of a Roman candle in a sea of tealights. Michael, my friend and teacher, never goodbye, only thank you and love. Lots of love. Lots and lots and lots of love.

Your Chance To Help Project Gutenberg Get Books Out

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Today’s Philanthroper deal hosts Project Gutenberg: $1 shares 36,000 free books with the world.

Paper books may not need batteries and you can curl up with one on a rainy day, but this is an attitude of first-world luxury. Paper books can burn, flood and not be replicated for millions of people all over the world without a printing press. Thanks to the ubiquity of cellphone technology, even a poor kid in an Indian fishing village can read the collected works of Shakespeare. It’s all about access. Project Gutenberg and hundreds of mirror sites the world over make this happen based on one simple philosophy: As many books as possible to as many people as possible. Let’s help keep it going.

Please find out more about Project Gutenberg, download some free eBooks for your library, share them, give back and spread the word. You can also help by being a proofreader yourself.

“The greatly increased availability of virtually anything to virtually anybody is a great thing.” – Chef Craig Giesecke

May Flowers In Texas

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Next year. The (cold) drought here is so bad this desert rat craves rain, heat and its accompanying humidity. Shorts, tank tops, barbequed ribs and cold beer now! How else is a former Kuwaiti resident to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden? Screw that, I’m more worried about the impact of the Mississippi River floods downstream. Data nerds, parse this: US Army Corps of Engineers Near Real-Time Gages reporting Hourly Stage Data. Let me know if there are better data to look at.

It occurred to me that a blog post can be two sentences long and provide evidence that neither VatulBlog nor I are dead.

While we’re making discoveries up in here, I

- have uncovered an inverse correlation between extreme productivity at the new job and frequency of blog posts here. It’s not even that I don’t have the time, energy and inclination to post during the day; my brain and creativity are put to such great use in that time that there is little left for the evening. Plus, Big D and I are still unpacking, unwinding, un-everything.

- am an extreme germaphobe, except when it comes to lovin’ on dogs and cats. Go figure.

- beat myself up too much over “not a writer” and/or “don’t write enough” when I clearly write when I put the old noggin’ to it. Example: The Season 2 opener post over at my other joint, Back Of Town. She’s a non-writer who doesn’t have enough time in the day for this blog, but runs an other blog. Uh huh.

- am signing off to watch Bladerunner again. Speaking of which, a number of Philip K. Dick books were posted to Project Gutenberg this morning. Check them out.

Nice Article About Project Gutenberg

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AltSearch Engines | Project Gutenberg – The Digitized Printing Press

… So no, you can’t exactly go to the Gutenberg project and pick up J.K. Rowling’s 8th installment “Harry Potter Finally Sees a Shrink After Suffering PTSD From Way Too Many Near-Death Experiences,” or any of the other seven, but what you can do is look up Arthur Conan Doyle and start reading up on Sherlock Holmes. As far as I know, the Doyle estate can’t stop the Project.

No, they cannot, not unless WIPO and individual nations cave to the demands of the global publishing lobby and render a copyright term to imply Life + Infinity.  This is not impossible, but it doesn’t have to be taken that far.  To give you an idea, increasing current copyright terms by even 10 to 20 years will pull a lot of books out of the public domain.

Origin Of Species Drinking Game

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A very apt response to yesterday’s post: Julie alerts us to a new party game, which indulges our … um … scientific curiosity: The Origin Of Species Drinking Game

Each player has to read out a whole sentence from the book without stopping for breath. If they can’t do it, they take a swig and try the next sentence instead. If they can, the book passes to the next player. It’ll go like this:

Player 1: “Finally, then, I conclude that the greater variability of specific characters, or those which distinguish species from species, than of generic characters, or those which are possessed by all the species; that the frequent extreme variability of any part which is developed in a species in an extraordinary manner in comparison with the same part in its congeners; and the slight degree of variability in a part, however extraordinarily it may be developed, if it be common to a whole group of species; that the great variability of secondary sexual characters and their great difference in closely allied species; that secondary sexual and ordinary specific differences are generally displayed in the same parts of the organisation, are all…”
(Drink)
“All being mainly due to the species of the same group being the descendants of a common progenitor, from whom they have inherited much in common, to parts which have recently and largely varied being more likely still to go on varying than parts which have long been inherited and have not varied, to natural selection having more or less completely, according to the lapse of time, overmastered the tendency to reversion and to further variability, to sexual selection being less rigid than ordinary selection, and to variations in the same parts having been accumulated by natural and sexual selection, and thus having been adapted for secondary sexual, and..”
(Drink)

On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin is available for free download at Project Gutenberg.

Not Buying The Kindle

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As a supporter of Project Gutenberg‘s eBook philosophy, I refuse to purchase a device that operates solely in proprietary file format and has hinky public domain vs. copyright and ownership issues associated with it. Lately, the PG-forum arguments for and against the Kindle have turned into ones of readability; subjective terms such as “comfortable” and “readable” are thrown about in place of that device’s accessibility and obsolescence. Personally, I have no problems reading the entire fraking Odyssey on my iPhone’s Stanza app after having downloaded it directly from Project Gutenberg. First of all, minimum eyestrain given that I practically live on my iPhone.  And other phones exist that offer comfort and reader resolution for long periods of time.  More importantly, it’s a special-super-secret-format-free, public-domain eBook which I can download again onto another phone once the iPhone is put out to pasture.  Ostensible readability is a sad metric with which to hold the Kindle up as the standard for eBook readers to come.

Back to the shady book ownership issues associated with the Kindle.  Do you know what I like about books more than readability?  The fact that they’re mine.  Once I purchase a book, I can do whatever I want with it: read it silently, read it out loud to myself or someone else, store it on my shelf for years, loan it to a friend, sell it or give it away to a library or school.  The same versatility applies to plain vanilla ASCII e-texts on computers and cellphones.  Can you do that with a Kindle eBook?  The answers range from definitely not to we don’t know, and this is why we cannot let Amazon’s Kindle or any other proprietary book reader establish the technological and legal standards for such devices.  Cory Doctorow writes in today’s BoingBoing (emphases mine):

Back in February, the Authors Guild, a lobby group representing less than 10,000 writers, argued that the Kindle’s ability to read text aloud infringed on copyright (it doesn’t — and even if it does, the infringement lies not in including the feature, but rather in using it; this is the same principle that makes the VCR legal). Amazon folded and agreed to revoke the feature.

Now comes some news about how they’re doing this, from the Knowledge Ecology International site:

“Beginning yesterday, Random House Publishers began to disable text-to-speech remotely. The TTS function has apparently been remotely disabled in over 40 works so far. Affected titles include works by Toni Morrison, Stephen King, and others. Other notable titles include Andrew Meachem’s American Lion, and five of the top ten Random House best-sellers in the Kindle store.”  I’ve been trying to get a statement from Amazon about this since February: how does disabling text-to-speech work? It appears that there’s a text-to-speech “flag” in the Kindle file-format that the Kindle looks for and responds to, disabling the feature if it’s set to 0 (a perl script called mobi2mobi can reset the bit to 1).  But what no one at Amazon will tell me is what other flags are lurking in the Kindle format: is there a “real only once” flag? A “no turning the pages backwards” flag?

This makes me a lot less inclined to purchase a Kindle than arguments about reader vs. phone readability and other straw-boogey-men raised by a few authors, their publishing houses and Amazon.  Think before you buy.  Your purchase has far-reaching media access and ownership implications.