02 June 2003

Digitising out-of-copyright books GUARDIAN -- Challenges face those who want to digitise out-of-print books. Brewster Kahle reckons there are 16m books in the public domain in the USA, and only about 20,000 have been digitised. Some individuals are helping. Michael Hart's long-running Project Gutenbergy co-ordinates Internet volunteers who retype out-of-copyright books. Gretchen Phillips in Texas is scanning children's books. Charles Franks is digitising books using OCR with volunteers during distributed proof reading. Indians can scan a book for $1 cmpared with $9 in the USA. Jack Schofield: "Drive to put in a good word" in The Guardian, May 1, 2003. x_ref101ww

Travel expenses worth as much as salaries GARRINGREEN ISDN -- Irish MEPs can make a huge profit on their airfare expenses, estimated at up to €43,000 per year. They can make that money by booking flights to Brussel in advance for less than €200 return, then claiming back €1217 by producing only their boarding card. Conor Sweeney: "MEPs can clear €1000 a week in airfare expenses" in The Sunday Independent, May 25, 2003 x_ref1481

01 June 2003

Underway in Ireland is moving to its own domain KILKENNY ORMONDE HOTSPOT -- Time to reset your preferences to continue reading this weblog. After 24 June 2003, Underway in Ireland will be situated on its own domain of the same name. The RSS feed will percolate into the major directories as time goes along. Because I know most aggregators won't get this message, I'm going to refresh both radio.weblogs.com/0102560 and www.topgold.com/blog with a summary of the most requested pages from the previous month. However, my daily writings will upload to Underway in Ireland. x_ref1256

Son of Comical Ali works medical relief from Ireland SUNDAY TIMES -- The son of Iraq's former information minister, the man nimcknamed Comical Ali, is campaigning to get medical supplies to his war-torn homeland. Dr Osama al-Shahaf, whose father has disappeared sice Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, is helping to co-ordinate a relief mission from Dublin to Baghdad. Al-Shahaf, who works as a locum surgeon at Beaumont Hospital, is particularly keen to get supplies to Al Yarmook, in Baghdad, the second-largest public hospital in the country. Juno McEnroe: "Son of Comical Ali backs Irish medical relief effort" in The Sunday Times, May 25, 2003 x_ref17