NewsScan Daily, 26 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 26 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Denning on Innovation
        Pew Reports Decline in Music Downloadings
        Non-Snarky Bloggers Give Mainstream Media News They Can Use
        Banks Warned About Fraudulent E-Mails
        'Faceless Entity' Says He Isn't a Stalker

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Benjamin Banneker
        Mailbag: The World As We Find It

DENNING ON INNOVATION
      In an interview for the current issue of Ubiquity, an online 
publication of ACM, the noted computer scientist and educator Peter Denning 
draws the following distinction between innovation and invention: "An 
innovation is a transformation of practice in a community. It is not the 
same as the invention of a new idea or object. The real work of innovation 
is in the transformation of practice. In this definition, community can be 
small, as in a workgroup, or large as in the whole world. A transformation 
of practice in the community won't happen unless the new practice generates 
more value to the members than the old. Value may not be economic; it may 
be pride, reputation, health, safety, freedom. Many innovations were 
preceded or enabled by inventions; but many innovations occurred without a 
significant invention."  (ACM Ubiquity 26 Apr 2004)
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/

PEW REPORTS DECLINE IN MUSIC DOWNLOADINGS
      A new report from the PEW Internet and American Life Project 
indicates that the lawsuits brought by Recording Industry Association of 
America (RIAA) against are having a definite impact on Internet music 
downloaders. A phone survey in February shows that 14% of online Americans 
(17 million people) say that at some time in their online lives they 
downloaded music files but no longer do any downloading. The Pew reports 
also says that new data from comScore Media Metrix show continuing declines 
or stagnation in the number of people with popular peer-to-peer file 
sharing applications actively running on their computers. (Pew Internet 
Project 26 Apr 2004)
http://www.pewinternet.org/

NON-SNARKY BLOGGERS GIVE MAINSTREAM MEDIA NEWS THEY CAN USE
      In his Internet Newsletter Frank Barnako notes that "the nation's 
broadcasters and newspaper editors this week drew extensive online coverage 
of their annual meetings from three independent reporters using Web logs 
and cell phones." He cites coverage by buzzmachine.com and lostremote.com 
and describes their work as "straight journalism, with none of the snarky 
comments so common in blogs. It appears all three were motivated by nothing 
more than the desire to prove they could do what they set out to do using a 
cell phone and a network connection. No financial backing, no overhead, and 
no wires." (CBS Market Watch 23 Mar 2004)
http://www.capitalvenue.com/FrankBarnako.htm

BANKS WARNED ABOUT FRAUDULENT E-MAILS
      The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) is warning banks that 
consumers are receiving fraudulent e-mail messages claiming that the FDIC 
has collaborated with credit card providers to provide a new service and 
that by following a link in the message the recipient can get a free trial 
membership for discount coupons at various online retail outlets. The FDIC 
says: "The e-mail was not sent by the FDIC and may be a fraudulent attempt 
to obtain personal information from consumers or to implant a computer 
virus onto the recipient's computer. Financial institutions and consumers 
should not access the link or attached files provided in the body of the 
e-mail and should not, under any circumstances, provide any personal 
information to unknown sources." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 23 Apr 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8503985.htm

'FACELESS ENTITY' SAYS HE ISN'T A STALKER
      In a South Carolina federal courtroom, a 38-year-old man named Robert 
James Murphy has pleaded innocent of Internet stalking charges and now 
remains free on $50,000 bond. Murphy was charged with 26 counts of using 
his computer "to annoy, abuse, threaten and harass" a Seattle woman who had 
never seen him until the day of his court appearance. The woman says: "He 
didn't give me any eye contact. He has been a faceless entity to me. I 
wanted to see him, and I wanted him to know that I was looking at him." If 
convicted, Murphy faces as many as 52 years in prison. He is accused of 
sending obscene messages and pictures to the woman and her co-workers 
beginning in 1998 -- tracking her from his computer as she moved from state 
to state and job to job. For several years she had been simply deleting and 
ignoring the man's messages, but then began saving them as evidence and 
eventually approaching the police. (AP/USA Today)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-04-23-cyberstalking-inocen 
t-plea_x.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably 
to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words or in good 
order." (Francis Bacon

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: BENJAMIN BANNEKER
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the free-born American Negro Benjamin 
Banneker (1731-1806), who has been called the Sable Genius in recognition 
of his intellectual accomplishments as a self-taught mathematician, 
inventor and astronomer. Banneker also displayed talent as an essayist, 
editing and publishing an Almanac that compared favorably with Benjamin 
Franklin's contemporaneous "Poor Richard's Almanac." Banneker spoke out 
eloquently against slavery. When he brought out his first almanac, Banneker 
sent a copy to Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. Secretary of State, along with a 
now-famous letter asking Jefferson's aid in bringing about better 
conditions for American blacks. In replying, Jefferson ignored the slavery 
issue, but he did praise Banneker's work, which he had shown to European 
scientists.
      Banneker was born in 1731 in the then-British colony of Maryland. His 
grandmother was Molly Welsh, an English woman who came to America as an 
indentured servant, who later acquired her own farm and married one of her 
freed slaves. Her daughter Mary Banneky also married a former slave who 
took the Banneky surname. His son's name, however, was changed from Banneky 
to Banneker by the schoolmaster of the local Quaker school Benjamin 
attended for a few years before he had to quit to work full time on farm. 
His grandmother took over his education, teaching him to read and write. 
After that Banneker pursued his educational interests by reading books 
borrowed from his neighbors, the Ellicotts, who also let him use their 
astronomical instruments.
      Banneker took over the farm when his parents died. In his spare time 
he became an amateur astronomer, making astronomical and tide calculations, 
as well as weather predictions. In 1792 he started a yearly almanac to 
publish his calculations, along with other articles and items of interested.
Banneker's talent for self-education had been demonstrated earlier, when in 
1753, he took on the task of building a clock after examining the workings 
of a friend's watch. He made drawings of each of the watch's component 
parts and then carved an enlarged wooden replica of each part. He assembled 
the parts into a clock that kept accurate time for the remaining fifty 
years of his life. His success with the clock brought many demands on him 
to repair watches, clocks and sundials. He also acquired a reputation for 
skill in making and solving mathematical puzzles.
      When Pierre L'Enfant was dismissed as the chief architect for the 
city of Washington, D.C., Banneker was recommended by Thomas Jefferson to 
be one of the three replacement surveyors. L'Enfant had taken his plans 
with him, but in two days Banneker was able to recreate the plans, 
including a complete layout of the streets, parks and major buildings. This 
ranks as one of Banneker's more notable achievements.
      In his later years, too old to work the farm, Banneker sold it to the 
Ellicott family on terms that allowed him to remain in the farmhouse until 
his death, which occurred in 1806 when he was 74. The U.S. Postal Service 
issued a postage stamp in his honor in 1980.

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471387525/ 
newsscancom/ref=nosim for a biography of Banneker by Charles Cerami -- or 
look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book 
recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

MAILBAG: THE WORLD AS WE FIND IT

SO THEN THE AEROPLANE SAYS TO THE GROUND...
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10442
      "Indeed, having a base station in the cabin would add to the problem 
as the base station generates signals of its own." ... On the other hand, 
the base station needs to only radiate a small amount of signal, since it 
provides service to the aeroplane, and not the several square miles that a 
ground-based station must cover. Likewise, the mobile handsets need only 
transmit with a minimum amount of power to be able to contact the base 
station.  Hence the total amount of mobile-generated signal is likely (at 
least in my view) to be considerably lower than if the phones on-board were 
connecting directly to transmitters on the ground.  The aerial for the 
aeroplane-to-ground link can be sited at a convenient place on the 
aircraft. (Martin Radford, U.K.)

FOLLOW THE MONEY
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10442
      Has anyone noticed that planes have onboard pay phones on seatbacks 
-- at $4 a minute rates -- which apparently do not interfere with the 
plane's navigation?  Bars don't let customers bring their own booze because 
they're in business to sell it for a profit.  If it isn't against FAA or 
FCC rules to call on a cell phone while in flight -- except for "uniformed 
crew instructions" -- is it too much a stretch to speculate that the 
airlines hope to make a profit off the seat-back phones? So now that they 
are figuring on some kind of Wi-Fi broadband link on the plane (for a fee, 
of course) it appears that the interference with navigation has been 
overcome.  (Geo)

BROADBAND ACCESS TO YOUR HARD-EARNED INCOME Re: 
http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10446
      I whole-heartedly agree with this man:  Why pay so much for something 
that brings so little benefit?  I am one of those "high-tech computer 
engineers," but I still use only a 28.8 dial-up connection at home (of 
course, there's high-speed access in the office).  I get Internet access 
for free with NetZero.  Whenever I wish the connection was faster, I step 
back and consider whether I'm just spending too much time on the computer 
anyway. (A faster connection doesn't mean you'll spend less time on the 
Internet -- probably more time.) (David Jackman)

I'M BIDING MY TIME CAUSE THAT'S THE KIND OF GUY I'M Re: 
http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10463
      Bierce's definition of the telephone ("An invention of the devil 
which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep 
his distance.") somehow reminds me of the following definition I found in 
someone's sig file: "Book, n.  Something with which to occupy one's time 
until the TV repairman arrives." (John Beck)

CONTRA KAGAN
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10449
      Contrary to Kagan, American traditions contain nothing that supports 
his notion that "this state of affairs is ... long in development, and 
likely to endure." U.S. history does contain failed campaigns in Vietnam 
and Somalia, which were "developments" that Americans should not want to 
repeat. Unfortunately under Bush we are nonetheless creating the same fatal 
situations in Iraq as in Vietnam: a useless de facto colonial regime; an 
indigenous allied army that won't fight; emphasis on military retaliation 
instead of on development of knowledge ('intelligence' is the military 
term) about the other side; and many others.
      Unlike Vietnam and Somalia, the consequences of "efficacy of power" 
in Iraq include murderous retaliation against Americans inside and outside 
Iraq. In making his assertion, Kagan's objective may be uglier than 
expressing right-wing airhead philosophy. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul 
Wolfowitz purports that the goal of exercising power now is to eliminate 
terrorism, like slavery and piracy. Is that noble; or instead does it 
constitute a blank check -- drawn on American blood, treasure, and 
reputation -- that we will side with any oppressive regime who arouses a 
popular revolt that includes terrorist tactics?
      Many Palestinians regard the present government of Israel as an 
oppressive regime. Israeli Prime Minister Sharon understandably cheered the 
U.S. assault on Iraq and less understandably wants the U.S. to assault 
Iran, too. If the USA continues with such a policy of "power," it will draw 
continue violent rage against the USA. Do American supporters of the 
present government of Israel -- whose policies ultimately endanger Israelis 
in buses and cafes -- in effect seek to continue this situation, as an 
absolute good?
      Kagan might wish Americans to accept this radical policy, which has 
no sanction from the Congress that is entitled to decide such matters, as 
merely a quaint American "perspective" about power. As a foreign-born 
American (with 3 European Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust in my family 
tree) and as a US military veteran, I consider Kagan's tenet to be 
un-American and fundamentally treacherous. (Michael C. Potter)

SITE-SEEING
Re: Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10449
      Here are some interesting links along similar lines to Kagan: 
http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.19912/news_detail.asp ; 
http://www.techcentralstation.com/031103A.html 
http://www.policyreview.org/dec02/harris.html 
http://www.policyreview.org/AUG02/harris_print.html 
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/opinion/02RUSH.html?ex=1077449081&ei=1&en= 
1dc4cef7d14fc701  http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html and 
"The Roots of Muslim Rage, Bernard Lewis" -- see 
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm ...and don't miss the 
second part linked within the article. (Gene Laughlin)

U.S. RESPONSIBLITY FOR 9/11 ATTACKS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10449
      I can't help but wonder if Harris is a victim of his own fantasy 
ideology if he honestly believes the U.S. is an innocent victim of 
psychotic enemies with terrorist tendencies. To dismiss the U.S.'s 
responsibility in provoking the attacks of 9/11 with such hooey is 
dangerously naïve at best, and  disingenuous at worst. If we really want to 
understand why our enemies hate us, we had first better understand why we 
have enemies -- and I think we will find it is not, as Harris seems to 
suggest, simply because people hate us for their own fantasist reasons. I 
submit those reasons are instead based in fact, and we had best face up to 
them. See: http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/TerrorismReason.htm (Rob Leslie)

THINGS TO DO
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10449
      Here are just a few of the things we need to do if we want to get on 
the good side of the fanatics: return women (including all feminists) to 
the early Middle Ages, kill all Jews, imprison or murder all homosexuals, 
and blow up Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Wall Street, San Francisco, and all 
other sources of what they see as unredeemable evil. Give up your TV and 
VCR and your infidel ways. Give up everything. Because fanatical hatred is 
not about policy, it's about ... yes, fanaticism. So to make ourselves 
liked by fanatics (and please understand that I'm talking now about 
fanatics, not about Muslims), we would have to make ourselves just like 
them: intolerant, self-absorbed, vengeful, deranged. No thanks, that's not 
for me... Is it for you? Are you sure? Don't do it half-way if you want 
them to love you. They certainly won't. (Michael Burke)

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