NewsScan Daily, 10 December 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 10 December 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       More Retrenchment at AOL
       Numbers for All Creatures Great and Small
       HP Foresees 20% Growth
       Will Link-Sharing Replace File-Sharing?
       Apology to Haitians From Makers of Grand Theft Auto

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Audre Lorde

MORE RETRENCHMENT AT AOL
America Online terminated 350 California employees, mostly software
developers and engineers, and told an additional 100 workers they will have
to move to the company's offices on the East Coast. AOL executive Jim
Whitney explained the terminations as "part of ongoing cost-management
efforts to consolidate and centralize development work." Although AOL has
more than 24 million U.S. subscribers, the company has lost 2 million
customers to competitors who offer faster or less expensive service.
(Washington Post 9 Dec 2003)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50912-2003Dec9.html

NUMBERS FOR ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL
A new approach to species identification, now being debated among
biologists, would create a kind of bar code from a small segment of DNA in
the genome of each living thing, a tag that would definitively discriminate
between species. The coding concept, adapted from the retail and
manufacturing industries, was suggested by evolutionary biologist Paul D.N.
Hebert of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.  Hebert says that, in
a very real sense, the ACGT genetic code sequences "can be viewed as genetic
'bar codes' that are embedded in every cell." Earlier this year, leading
scientists involved in taxonomy (the classification of organisms) met to
plan the creation of an international bar-coding system, and Hebert hopes
such meetings will lead to the creation of a database that could become a
giant DNA-based identification system that will begin with animals but
eventually expand to include all living things. (San Jose Mercury News 9 Dec
2003) http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7452033.htm

HP FORESEES 20% GROWTH
Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina tells financial analysts that
HP is moving on up: "Clearly we believe the economy is improving... I know
it's popular these days to describe HP as stuck between IBM and Dell, but
unfortunately the facts don't support the thesis." She says the company will
revamp its sales force to sell computers and services under one
organization, will acquire several small software companies (though not a
big services or consulting company, as has been rumored), and will build on
such successes as its recently landed service contracts (from organizations
such as the U.S. Postal Service and Novell). Fiorina projects a 20% rate of
growth in the company's profits. (USA Today 9 Dec 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-09-hp-outlook_x.htm

WILL LINK-SHARING REPLACE FILE-SHARING?
Microsoft has joined forces with Vivendi's Universal Music Group and other
companies to change the way people use the Internet to buy music, movies and
games. Other companies in the project (called the Content Reference Forum)
include NTT, ARM Holdings, VeriSign, and Macrovision. The Content Reference
Forum hopes to create a system in which people share customized links (or
"content references") rather than the music or movie files themselves.
Clicking on a link would trigger a series of hidden electronic messages that
would determine what kind of digital file your computer could be offered,
how much you should be asked to pay for the file, and how your money would
be split among the various participants in the distribution chain. Of
course, copyright owners would have to convince users to share and download
links instead of actual songs, movies and software programs. (Los Angeles
Times 10 Dec 2003)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-music10dec10,1,6600726.story?coll=la
-headlines-technology

APOLOGY TO HAITIANS FROM MAKERS OF GRAND THEFT AUTO
The video game company that makes Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which
features dialogue urging players to "kill all the Haitians," has apologized
to the Haitian community and promised to delete the offensive dialogue from
new copies of the game. (New York Times 10 Dec 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/12/10/nyregion/10HAIT.html

*****

FLASH CARD
     "When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my
vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."
(Aurdre Lorde)

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HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: AUDRE LORDE
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American poet, novelist, essayist
and memoirist Audre Geraldine Lorde (1934-1992), who in 1991 was named the
official state poet of New York.
     Lorde was born in New York City to an immigrant couple from the West
Indies and grew up in Harlem. In 1954, she attended the National University
of Mexico for a year, after which she attended Hunter College, worked at a
variety of low-paying jobs, and kept up her poetry writing. She received a
bachelor's degree in literature and philosophy in 1959 and a master's in
library science from Columbia University in 1960. For several years, she
worked as a librarian in Mount Vernon and then New York City. In 1962, she
married Edward Rollins, an attorney. They had two children but divorced in
1970. As she began to experience success as a writer she gave up library
work for full-time writing and occasional teaching and lecturing. She
offered courses on poetry at City College and on racism at Lehman College
and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
     Lorde's writings upheld Black American culture, protested the
perpetuation of sex discrimination, and argued for gay rights. In 1973 her
poetry collection "From A Land Where Other People Live" was nominated for a
National Book Award. Her strongly political poems, "New York Headshop and
Museum" (1974) and "Coal" (1976) broadened her readership. Then in 1978 came
what is widely considered her masterpiece, "The Black Unicorn," which
relates African mythology to the experiences of the black diaspora.
     To support the writings of black feminist writers, Lorde cofounded The
Women of Color Press, and for a time she served as an editor of the lesbian
journal Chrysalis. In 1992 she succumbed to cancer. About her, Renee Graham
wrote in a Boston Globe tribute: "She took her frailties and misfortunes,
her strengths and passions, and forged them into sometimes startling, always
stirring verse. She could weep like Billie Holiday, chuckle like Dizzy
Gillespie or bark bad like John Coltrane."

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393319725/newsscancom/ref=nos
im for Lorde's "ollected poems" -- or look for it in your favorite library.
(We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.)

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