NewsScan Daily, 30 September 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 30 September 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Reuters/Microsoft Instant Messaging Deal
       Speech, Privacy, and Do-Not-Call: 'I Want To Be Alone'
       Chat Group Ban of Separatist Group Affects All of India
       Disney On-Demand Digital Video Service
       Want to Hook Up Tonight?

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Clair Patterson

REUTERS/MICROSOFT INSTANT MESSAGING DEAL
The Reuters news and information company and Microsoft will combine their
two instant messaging systems as an offering for financial services
companies. Reuters executive David Gurle says the goal is "to build a global
communications infrastructure for the financial services industry. We want
to provide the same functionality for which they now use the phone, but with
the added element of data." (New York Times 30 Sep 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/technology/30INST.html

SPEECH, PRIVACY, AND DO-NOT-CALL: 'I WANT TO BE ALONE'
Privacy and free speech are conflicting values in the current controversy
over "Do Not Call" legislation aimed at curtailer commercial telemarketing
calls (while continuing to allow calls made for political or philanthropic
purposes). David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy
Information Center, says: "The telemarketers have some First Amendment
rights to disseminate information. But the consumer also has some rights to
control unwanted information coming into the home." Telemarketers argue that
their own free-speech rights are being violated by the FTC's attempt to
establish a Do-Not-Call list, and UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh explains:
"When it comes to residential privacy, the Supreme Court has suggested that
content-based discrimination is illegal. The FTC is setting up content-based
discrimination." Some legal experts think the government could legally
expand the registry to all telemarketers, with a registry that just says,
like Greta Garbo, "I want to be alone." Attorney Bruce Johnson, an expert in
First Amendment law, says: "I don't think it's restricting political or
religious speech. The registry just says that I don't want to hear from
anybody." (San Jose Mercury News 27 Sep 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6874978.htm

CHAT GROUP BAN OF SEPARATIST GROUP AFFECTS ALL OF INDIA
A government ban on the Internet discussion group of a two-dozen member
separatist movement has ended up blocking access to popular, unrelated Yahoo
forums in nearly all of India. For technical reasons, Indian Internet
service providers were unable to block just the separatist group's site and
had to shut down every Yahoo discussion group. Businessman Sushil Devaraj
says: "This is more like a dictatorship and goes against the concept of
freedom of speech." Economics professor Rajeev Gowda of the Indian Institute
of Management complains:
"My students have a problem. I discuss my subject with them on Yahoo groups.
We have not been able to do it. This heavy-handed action has affected a
variety of users who have nothing to do with that group." (AP/Los Angeles
Times 29 Sep 2003)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology14sep29,1,4361259.story?c
oll=sns-ap-toptechnology

DISNEY ON-DEMAND DIGITAL VIDEO SERVICE
The Walt Disney is beginning a new service, MovieBeam, that sends whole
movies in digital form over the same broadcast spectrum already used by TV
stations. The movies are stored in the hard drive of a set-top box and can
then be viewed at any time (unlike movies ordered on cable television for
viewing at preset times). MovieBeam's set-top units come with about a
hundred movies already stored and available for viewing, and then ten new
releases are transmitted each week to the unit, replacing ten of the older
titles. Customers will be charged a $6.99 monthly rental fee for the set-top
unit and between $3.99 and $2.49 for each movie they watch. (AP/SJMN 29 Sep
2003) http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6892407.htm

WANT TO HOOK UP TONIGHT?
Colorado entrepreneur Gary Schneider has developed The Meeting Place, a
wireless touch-screen kiosk system that lets people meet immediately in a
nightclub, bar or other social hangout after they've had a chance to
anonymously check out the other person's interest profiles. The new system
(see softshoulder.net) is planned for rollout this month in various night
spots around the country. Schneider sees the system as a fusion of real-time
personals, speed dating, and introduction services: "The Meeting Place is
for people who want to connect tonight. Right now. It can help people find a
dance, a date, a short-term relationship or just someone to talk to." He
adds: "For women in particular, it is a way for them to gain more control
over the introduction process. I was always shy about walking up to some
stranger with a cheesy line." (USA Today 29 Sep 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-09-29-dating-kiosks_x
htm

*****

FLASH CARD
     "No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings." (William
Blake)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: CLAIR PATTERSON
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American scientific pioneer Clair C.
"Pat" Patterson (1922-1995), who is best known for his determination of the
age of the earth and the solar system -- and for his groundbreaking work on
lead pollution in the modern world.
     Driven by a desire to better understand the geochemistry of metals in
terrestrial rocks, waters, and atmospheres, in meteorites, and in the solar
system, Patterson developed precise analytical techniques that enabled him
to establish the true levels of pre-industrial lead in the environment. His
analysis of lead isotopes in meteorites and oceanic minerals led him in the
early 1950s to conclude that the earth and solar system are 4.6 billion
years old. Present day theories of stellar birth and evolution are based in
some measure on this important measurement.
     While studying lead isotopes, Patterson found that compared to their
ancient ancestors modern humans contain up to 1000 times more lead in their
bones and teeth. Convinced that people were being contaminated by lead from
water pipes, from leaded gasoline, and from the solder used to seal canned
foods, he led an unpopular, but ultimately, successful crusade to force
powerful corporations, to discontinue the use of lead in their products.
     Patterson was born and grew up in Mitchellville, Iowa, near Des Moines,
where his father was a postal worker. In 1943 he earned a degree in
chemistry at Iowa's Grinnell College. He continued to study chemistry at the
University of Iowa, where he earned a master's degree in 1944. He then
undertook doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, which were
interrupted by his assignment to the Manhattan atomic energy project with
residence at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
     After the war he returned to the Chicago campus and completed his
doctorate in 1951. He stayed on at the University of Chicago as a
postdoctoral fellow for one year, and then moved to Caltech as a research
fellow at the invitation of his major professor, Howard Brown, who was
leaving Chicago to revamp and expand Caltech's chemistry program. Patterson
would have an eventful and outstanding career at Caltech, where besides
chemistry and geology he engaged in pioneering work across a number of
sub-disciplines, including archeology, meteorology, oceanography, and
environmental science. Among his many honors, Patterson received the J.
Lawrence Smith Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1975 and the
Professional Achievement Award of the University of Chicago in 1981. He was
elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1987, and has also had a peak
in Antarctica and an asteroid named for him. In 1995 he received the Tyler
Prize for Environmental Achievement, the premier international environmental
honor in the world.
     In his later years, Patterson turned his attention to the philosophical
implications of scientific work. He distinguished between the engineering
versus the scientific modes of thinking, considering the scientific mind to
be the inquiring mind that seeks to uncover the world's secrets, and the
engineering mind the acquisitive one seeking to control the natural world,
sometimes wreaking disaster as in the case of lead pollution.
     Patterson died suddenly at age 73 at his home in The Sea Ranch,
California, northwest of Santa Rosa.

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560725680/newsscancom/ref=nosim
for "Clean Hands: Clair Patterson's Campaign Against Environmental Lead
Contamination" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all
revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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