NewsScan Daily, 7 July 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 7 July 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Belt-Tightening at Microsoft
       Kerry Edwards: That's a Fellow in Indianapolis
       Stolen: One Third of the World's Software
       File-Swapping at a New Level: I2hub
       Linux, VoIP, RFID Surge

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: The Sorry State of Science Education

BELT-TIGHTENING AT MICROSOFT
     Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is calling on his employees to do a billion
dollars worth of cost-cutting, so that the company can address shareholder
concerns about its stagnant stock price. In his annual message, the
questions Ballmer posed to Microsoft employees were: "Will we be first with
important innovations? Will process excellence lead to greater ability to
make an individual difference? Will our focus on costs hurt employees
personally and will it hinder new investments? Will we grow and will our
stock price rise? Will the PC remain a vital tool, and will we remain a
great company?" In response to employees who had wondered why Microsoft
hasn't used its large quantity of cash for employee benefits, Ballmer's
response was that "the cash is shareholders' money, so we need to either
invest in new opportunities or return it to them." (New York Times 7 Jul
2004) (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/technology/07soft.html

KERRY EDWARDS: THAT'S A FELLOW IN INDIANAPOLIS
     Indianapolis native Kerry Edwards, a 34-year-old bail bondsman, owns
the Kerryedwards.com domain, but is willing to sell the name -- for the
right price. A Kerry spokesman says: "Our campaign did inquire about
KerryEdwards.com, but because of the money they were asking for, we took a
pass." Kerry Edwards wanted a five-figure payment. A number of other obvious
choices for a campaign Web site (including KerryEdwards04.com,
KerryEdwards2004.com, and KerryEdwards-2004.com) are already registered.
(Washington Post 7 Jul 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32602-2004Jul6.html

STOLEN: ONE THIRD OF THE WORLD'S SOFTWARE
     The Business Software Alliance, a trade group, says that 36% of all the
software in the world has been pirated, costing the industry $29 billion in
lost revenue. The five countries with the highest incidence of pirated
software are: China (92%), Vietnam (92%) and Indonesia (88%), Ukraine (91%),
and Russia (87%). (AP/San Jose Mercury News 7 Jul 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9097724.htm

FILE-SWAPPING AT A NEW LEVEL: I2HUB
     A new file-swapping service called i2hub works only at universities
with access to Internet2 -- a superfast version of the Internet created for
academic use. One student who uses i2hub says: "People in legal trouble
aren't aware of what they're doing or they are laughing in the face of
authorities by deciding to share a ridiculous number of files. I make a
minimal number of downloads from the Internet." (Wall Street Journal 7 Jul
2004) http://www.wsj.com (sub req'd)

LINUX, VOIP, RFID SURGE
     Gartner Research reports that desktop Linux is running hotter than
expected and that corporations are loosening their purse strings for IT
projects after a three-year hiatus. Gartner senior vice-president Bob
Hayward says 2004 has so far proven to be a good year for the tech industry,
with solid growth across most sectors: "A lot of projects haven't been done
for nearly three years and there is quite a big backlog. We are seeing this
year that people are getting around to doing some of those things... The
other interesting thing that we had signposted more for 2005 was Linux on
the desktop." (The Australian 6 Jul 2004) Rec'd from John Lamp
http://tinyurl.com/2dzeg

*****  

FLASH CARD
     "The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis
by an ugly fact." (Thomas Henry Huxley)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: THE SORRY STATE OF SCIENCE EDUCATION
     Culture critic Neil Postman decried the shallow state of science
education in this age so dependent on the technological fruits of science:
     "From the point of view of the ascent of humanity, the scientific
enterprise is one of our most glorious achievements. Would it be an
exaggeration to say that not one student in fifty knows what 'induction'
means? Or knows what a scientific theory is? 0r a scientific model? Or knows
what are the optimum conditions of a valid scientific experiment? Or has
ever considered the question of what scientific truth is? In 'The Identity
of Man' Bronowski says the following: 'This is the paradox of imagination in
science, that it has for its aim the impoverishment of imagination. By that
outrageous phrase, I mean that the highest flight of scientific imagination
is to weed out the proliferation of new ideas. In science, the grand view is
a miserly view, and a rich model of the universe is one which is as poor as
possible in hypotheses.'
     "Is there one student in a hundred who can make any sense out of this
statement? Though the phrase 'impoverishment of imagination' may be
outrageous, there is nothing startling or even unusual about the idea
contained in this quotation. Every practicing scientist understands what
Bronowski is saying. Yet it is kept a secret from our students. It should be
revealed. In addition to having each course include a serious historical
dimension, I would propose that every school -- elementary through college
-- offer and require a course in the philosophy of science. Such a course
should consider the language of science, the nature of scientific proof, the
source of scientific hypotheses, the role of imagination, the conditions of
experimentation, and especially the value of error and disproof. If I am not
mistaken, many still believe that what makes a statement scientific is that
it can be verified. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case: What
separates scientific statements from nonscientific statements is that the
former can be subjected to the test of falsifiability. What makes science
possible is not our ability to recognize 'truth' but our ability to
recognize falsehood."
     [See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679745408/newsscancom/ref=nos
im Neil Postman's "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology,
Vintage" -- or look for it in your favorite library. Note: We donate all
revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.]

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