Eric Hellman

Personal Note, January 1 2026: I have a new job: Executive Director of the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. I reposted what I wrote for PG's January Newsletter on my blog: go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2026/01/new-...

this from @ftrain.com is terrific, unsurprisingly, and I think this sentence actually understates the issue; it's not just that the big labs are in a hurry, it's that they don't see producing useful and well-documented tools for using these models as an important part of what they're doing

Hi, I'm Eric. My job is to make sure Project Gutenberg lasts another 55 years. I love it when Clarence starts singing "Ho Ho Ho Ho" in the last verse of Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town". Would you like to introduce yourself with a small song moment you like?

The best talk I have ever seen: Cliff Stoll at DEF CON 34. A 75-cent accounting error. Original 1987 NSA transparencies. A thermos of minestrone soup. Saturn photos for call-trace data. Absolute treasure. josephhall.org/blog/cliff-s...

His mom says Jovanny (the name he went by) had lived in Plainfield NJ about 20 years. She says he had a work permit and was headed for work when he was detained in June. She says his 12 year old daughter can’t eat or sleep.

I was just walking around to talk to people when I got drafted for the OG panel at #dwebcamp. Luckily I had a few stories that the audience appreciated.

I have a bit of vacation in Mainz, with my son Axel.

Excited to visit the Gutenberg Museum MOVED tomorrow. They’re building a new museum, the old building was unsuited to exhibiting the museum’s treasures, so there’s a temporary museum in the Natural History Museum.

Project Gutenberg News - July 2026 Contents Happy 55th Birthday, Project Gutenberg! PG at ALA Annual Meeting 100th Anniversary of The Hungry Tiger of Oz 100th Anniversary of The Muder of Roger Ackroyd Do we still need 2 kinds of MOBI? New Releases at Gutenberg.org — June 2026 #ebooks #publicdomain

Project Gutenberg is attending #ALAAC26! Enjoy it @gluejar.com www.gutenberg.org #ebooks #publicdomain

Yo las tengo

Johnny Knoxville says Ed Witten should be more careful when talking about physics.

Science Times was so interesting today. Black hole neutrinos and hermit crabs!

The team is super proud of this new release!

this is the wokest take on St. Patrick's Day ever and I love it

My town.

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

I believe in the promised land. IYKYK.

It's nice to read NYT opeds on tech policy issues from people who actually understand the nuances and ins-and-outs of tech policy, rather than the usual crowd of moral panic "but but do something!" folks. That is to say, this is good:

Today at #Charleston2025 @nielsstern.bsky.social will be participating in a panel about AI bots alongside Tim Lloyd @liblynxllc.bsky.social, Tim McGeary @duke-university.bsky.social & Eric Hellman, Free Ebook Foundation @gluejar.com We're looking forward to this timely discussion!

Starting now at the Charleston Conference @nielsstern.bsky.social participating in the ‘Bot war’ panel #Chs2025 #Charleston2025 @gluejar.com

Great article about Greg Newby www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/6a7a103...

The Project Gutenberg community mourns the passing of our CEO, Dr. Greg Newby (@gbnewby). Without his years of leadership, Project Gutenberg wouldn't be what it is today. Learn more about him and his contributions at www.gutenberg.org/about/newby....

This morning my ChatGPT quota was inexplicably exhausted. It took a while but I pieced it together. Voice mode somehow got activated when I went to bed. The bot then engaged in a 10 hour conversation with my snoring dog, answering questions the pup wasn’t asking and praising him for his insight.

I was there. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/n...

Join us for the Open Heritage Statement Launch Webinar | 14 October at 14:00 UTC. openheritagestatement.org/signatories Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has already signed the list of signatories to the Open Heritage Statement. #CulturalHeritage #CreativeCommons #PublicDomain

TAROCH Coalition, led by Creative Commons, promotes equitable access to public domain heritage. Its Open Heritage Statement affirms shared values, removes barriers & urges a UNESCO framework to secure global cultural access & participation for a sustainable creative future openheritagestatement.org

Personal Note: As of today, I am officially "Acting Executive Director" of Project Gutenberg. PG's President and CEO, Greg Newby, is very ill and does not have the energy to do all the things that keep Project Gutenberg running. This is a big responsibility for me and it's going to be a lot of work.

It is so important that we stay engaged and get people ready to vote this November. New Jersey needs a leader like Mikie Sherrill who will stand up to Trump and fight for working families. Be sure to tune in to tonight’s debate! mikiesherrill.com/debate

Do you love public transit and science fiction? Of course you do! Now you can have them at the same time! Next Tues, 9/16, at 6pm, an astonishing panel of activists and creators are coming together to talk about the future of transit. Seriously do not miss this one-of-a-kind event. luma.com/0olo6szj

On Wednesday, I finished a 110km trek, the Fjällräven Classic Sweden, along with 500 others, many of whom are now good friends!

The intersection of my interests: libraries, books, and whackadoo sports mascots.

Project Gutenberg (@gutenberg.org) had its 2nd day ever with over 1M book downloads: www.gutenberg.org/browse/score... Probably lots of AI bots, but regardless, the folks at ibiblio.org deserve a lot of credit for a hosting infrastructure that serves that load without a glitch!

Here’s a project that someone out there will think is fun - do a census of unicode characters used in Project Gutenberg texts. In addition to helping PG code development, it might be interesting from a ddigital humanities/data science angle. github.com/gutenbergtoo... @gutenberg.org

Earth shaking events 65 years ago. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Va...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZHW...

So Journalism falls short, the world needs to respect Sovereignty.

Another edition of Eric's stravaverse. Today: The Boston Marathon and Paul Revere's ride. go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2025/04/bost...

Tonight is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s midnight ride. May his memory remind us all to resist the tyranny forming in our government.

#AI Bots are Overwhelming Some #Journals (via @cenmag.bsky.social) cen.acs.org/policy/publi... #scholcomm #publishing

Tariffs xkcd.com/3073

#handsoff the sign is weeping.

#handsoff Essex County, with Cory Booker

Aggressive AI scraping bots have been periodically making it very difficult to access Unglue.it. The image shows the traffic pattern we've been dealing with. We will outlast this evil scourge.

BTW if anyone wants training data from Project Gutenberg to do WHATEVER, there's a one click file you can download containing ALL the cleaned utf-8 .txt files at Project Gutenberg, updated weekly. No scraping necessary! gutenberg.org/cache/epub/f... (9.9GB)