NewsScan Daily, 28 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 28 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Virtualization Servers From IBM
       Comcast Walks Away From the Table
       Fingerprint Technology in Ohio Schools
       Want Attention? Drive Through Manalapan, Florida
       Hate Groups on the Internet

FEATURES        
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Amanda Theodosia Jones

VIRTUALIZATION' SERVERS FROM IBM
     Priced as low as $1,500 (and as high as $1 million), IBM's new server
computers act like mainframes -- running as many as 10 operating systems on
a single machine. The company says its new technology will simplify the
management and improve the performance of corporate data centers, where
mainframes typically run at 80% of capacity. Other companies working on data
center management and "virtualization" technologies include HP, Sun, Dell,
Intel, EMC, Veritas, Opsware and others. Virtualization technology decouples
the tight link between a specific microprocessor and a specific operating
system, and IBM executive William Zeitler predicts, "In the future,
advantage is not going to be so much in the chip or the operating system,
but in the management and control layer of technology." (New York Times 28
Apr 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/technology/28blue.html

COMCAST WALKS AWAY FROM THE TABLE
     Withdrawing his company's unsolicited bid to take over the Walt Disney
Company, Comcast president and CEO Brian L. Roberts explains: "We have
always been disciplined in our approach to acquisitions. Being disciplined
means knowing when it is time to walk away. That time is now. It has become
clear that there is no interest on the part of Disney's management and Board
in putting Comcast and Disney together. As a result, we have withdrawn our
offer." (Washington Post 28 Apr 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48755-2004Apr28.html

FINGERPRINT TECHNOLOGY IN OHIO SCHOOLS
     The Akron, Ohio school district has begun using a $700,000 "iMeal"
program that identifies students in school lunch lines using their
fingerprints. Students whose parents don't want them fingerprinted can
instead be issued a PIN number to participate in the school lunch program.
The coordinator of Akron's Child Nutrition Services says, "It's a parental
and student choice what to do. We don't encourage or discourage either
option." Whether students use fingerprints or PIN numbers, they'll be able
to pay as they go through the lunch line or draw from a prepaid account.
(AP/San Jose Mercury 27 Apr 2004) News
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8531202.htm

WANT ATTENTION? DRIVE THROUGH MANALAPAN, FLORIDA
     Manalapan, Florida, where two out of every three homes are worth more
than $500,000, will soon be running background checks on every car and
driver that passes through town. Cameras will take infrared photos recording
a car's tag number, and computer software will automatically run the numbers
through law enforcement databases; police will also have a picture of the
driver, taken with another set of cameras. A Manalapan police official says,
"Courts have ruled that in a public area, you have no expectation of
privacy." In any event, the official makes a point of saying that the data
collected this way will be destroyed every three months. (AP/USA Today 27
Apr 2004) 
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-04-27-rich-people-shun-privacy_x.htm

HATE GROUPS ON THE INTERNET
     Since the recent conviction in Illinois of a white supremacist who
tried to have a judge murdered, the FBI has increased its monitoring of Web
sites operated by hate groups. Richard K. Ruminski, the FBI official in
charge of counter-terrorism investigations in Chicago, has made it clear
that the agency won't tolerate anyone crossing the line from protected free
speech to advocating violence. Ruminski says of one site: "It concerns us to
the point where we're going to see what legal actions can be taken in order
to maybe legally take that Web site down." (AP/Los Angeles Times 28 Apr
2004) 
http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology11apr28,1,5266174.story?c
oll=sns-ap-toptechnology

*****  

FLASH CARD 
     "One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the
peak." (G.K. Chesterton)

AMANDA THEODOSIA JONES (1835-1914)
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American poet, editor, and inventor
Amanda Theodosia Jones (1835-1914). She published her first poems in the
pages of the "Ladies' Repository," a Methodist magazine located in
Cincinnati, Ohio. During the Civil War she penned a number of war-songs that
received a wide circulation. After the war, in 1869, she became an associate
editor on the Chicago journal, the "Universe," and was subsequently a
contributor to the "Western Rural." In 1870 she was named editor of "The
Bright Side," a juvenile weekly. Then in 1873 she cut back on her literary
work to pursue the commercial interests that would add her name to the
roster of American inventors, well earned by her successful food canning
process and her device for the safe fueling of oil furnaces.
     Jones was born in East Bloomfield, New York, where she grew up and
attended school until 1845, when the family moved to Black Rock, near
Buffalo. She graduated from the normal course at the East Aurora Academy in
1850 and then taught school for the next four years. In 1854 when her verse
began to be published, she turned to writing full time. She had frequent
bouts of illness, followed by periods of convalescence, which led to her
engaging in various questionable therapies, eventually becoming a
spiritualist, convinced that she was a medium.
     Fearing that the world in her time would be prejudiced against a woman
inventor, she used her role as a medium to present her patented vacuum
method for canning food as a procedure suggested communicated to her by her
deceased brother. Jones went into the food canning business by founding the
Women's Canning and Preserving Company. The company employed only women,
which might explain the company's early demise, despite the fact that the
Jones canning method, which revolutionized the food preservation process,
has remained in use until the present time.
     In starting up her business Jones made the following announcement in
words that are sometimes quoted in feminist circles: "This is a woman's
industry. No man will vote our stock, transact our business, pronounce on
women's wages, supervise our factories. Give men whatever work is suitable,
but keep the governing power.... Here is a mission, let it be fulfilled."
     Taking note of the many accidents connected to the use of oil as fuel,
Jones next engaged her talent for invention by coming up with a device to
control the flow of oil into furnaces and other oil-burning devices. She
developed her safety valve for the release of oil by performing trial and
error experiments in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. The patent for her oil
burner was issued in 1880.
     The published writings of Amanda Jones include: "Ulah, and Other Poems"
(1860); "Atlantis, and Other Poems" (1866), "Poems," (1867), and "A Prairie
Idyl, and Other Poems" (1882). Her Civil War poetry appeared serially in
"Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper."

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471023345/
newsscancom/ref=nosim for "Patently Female" -- or look for it in your
favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to
adult literacy programs.)

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