NewsScan Daily, 20 December 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 20 December 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
         Judge Slams Spammers With $1-Billion Judgment
         Sprint Launches Streaming Music Service
         Commodore on a Chip
         Ultra-Real Simulation from the U.S. Military

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Robert Boyle

JUDGE SLAMS SPAMMERS WITH $1-BILLION JUDGMENT
      A federal judge in Iowa has awarded a small ISP more than $1 billion 
in damages in what's believed to be the largest judgment ever against 
spammers. The case was brought by Robert Kramer, whose company provides 
e-mail service to about 5,000 customers, and who filed suit after his 
inbound mail servers were jammed with as many as 10 million spam-mails a 
day in 2000. Citing federal racketeering laws (RICO) and the Iowa Ongoing 
Criminal Conduct Act, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Wolle ordered AMP 
Dollar Savings of Mesa, Ariz., to pay $720 million; Cash Link Systems of 
Miami, Fla., $360 million; and TEI Marketing Group, also of Florida, 
$140,000. "It's definitely a victory for all of us that open up our e-mail 
and find lewd and malicious and fraudulent e-mail in our boxes every day," 
said Kramer, who is unlikely to ever collect on the judgments. (AP/Wall 
Street Journal 20 Dec 2004)
<http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110349923676804327,00.html> (sub req'd)

SPRINT LAUNCHES STREAMING MUSIC SERVICE
      Sprint is launching a new service that streams music over the 
airwaves to cell phones, marking the first time such service is offered in 
the U.S. (Similar services are gaining traction in Europe and Asia, where 
wireless networks have already been upgraded.) For an extra $6 a month, 
Sprint customers can choose among six channels, organized by genre, as well 
as some music videos and artist interviews. "It's like radio in the sense 
that now you have access to music wherever you are," says Dave Del Beccaro, 
CEO of Music Choice, which is partnering with Sprint on the service. "But 
it's better than radio. It's a subscription service, and commercial-free." 
The move is part of a larger trend among wireless carriers and record 
labels "to turn the humble mobile phone into a kind of iPod on steroids," 
and comes on the heels of the launch of Sprint's Vision packages, which 
include access to streamed TV stations, news and other entertainment. (CNet 
News.com 19 Dec 2004)
<http://news.com.com/Sprint+offers+streaming+mobile+music/2100-1027_3-5496081.html>

COMMODORE ON A CHIP
      A self-taught computer chip designer in rural Oregon has managed to 
squeeze the entire circuitry of an old Commodore 64 PC onto a single chip, 
which she has incorporated into a joystick that connects by cable to a TV 
set, giving users access to 30 vintage video games -- mostly sports, racing 
and puzzle games from the early '80s. The device requires no separate game 
cartridges -- all the entertainment is in the joystick. Designer Jeri 
Ellsworth says her first venture into toy making hasn't made her a mint, 
"but I'm having fun." Ellsworth's efforts in reverse-engineering old 
computers and giving them new life through custom chips has generated a 
cult following among "retro" PC enthusiasts, as well as a number of job 
offers from people impressed with her passion. "It's possible to get a 
credential and not have passion," says Rapport Inc. CEO Andrew Singer, who 
compares her to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Macintosh designer 
Burrell Smith, neither of whom had formal training when they made their 
mark in computer design. The $30 Commodore 64 joystick is being marketed by 
Mammoth Toys, and has been a big hit on the QVC Web site. (New York Times 
20 Dec 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20joystick.html>

ULTRA-REAL SIMULATION FROM THE U.S. MILITARY
      The Army's Joint Fires and Effects Trainer Systems (JFETS) offers 
U.S. military personnel ultra-real simulation training through its "Urban 
Terrain Module" and "Outdoor Terrain Module" exercises. Since September, 
more than 300 officers have trained at the compound, learning new fighting 
techniques through a new breed of military simulator that's "part 
videogame/part Hollywood soundstage with a serious dose of theme park 
thrill." "It's really all about cognitive training, decision-making under 
stress," says Randy Hill, director of applied research at the Institute for 
Creative Technologies, a consortium of educators, videogame makers, 
entertainment firms and military representatives. Last year the Army 
extended its contract with ICT in a five-year deal worth $100 million. The 
new approach to training not only saves the military live-ammunition costs 
-- it also clicks with a new generation of recruits that have grown up 
playing videogames, such as "Halo" and "Battlefield: 1942." "It's as close 
to the real thing as we can make it," says one officer, who recalls his 
training back 1993 as largely consisting of slide shows on a projector. "In 
10 years we've come this far. I can't imagine what it'll be like in another 
10." (AP/Washington Post 19 Dec 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11903-2004Dec19.html>

*****

FLASH CARD
      "If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be 
destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of 
creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest 
words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, if you 
wish to call it that) that all things are made of atoms -- little particles 
that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a 
little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another." 
(Richard P. Feynman)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ROBERT BOYLE
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Anglo-Irish chemist and natural 
philosopher Robert Boyle (1627-1691), who is celebrated for his pioneering 
experiments on the properties of gases and other material substances that 
laid the foundation for the modern theory of chemical elements. Boyle was a 
founding member of the Royal Society of London and had the able assistance 
of Robert Hooke, the Society's inventive curator, in constructing the air 
pump that made it possible to demonstrate the role of air in combustion, 
respiration and the transmission of sound. In his 1661 report to the Royal 
Society, Boyle described the inverse relationship, now known as Boyle's 
law, which obtains between the volume of a gas and its pressure when 
temperature is held constant.
       In a companion work, "The Sceptical Chymist," published that same 
year, Boyle called into question the Aristotelian theory of the four 
elements (earth, air, fire and water) and the three principles (salt, 
sulfur and mercury) proposed by Paracelsus. Instead, he developed the 
concept of primary particles, which by coalition produce corpuscles. 
According to this concept, different substances result from the number, 
position and motion of the primary matter. All natural phenomena were 
therefore explained not by Aristotelian elements and qualities but by the 
motion and organization of primary particles. Boyle did not postulate 
different kinds of primary elements -- the 19th-century view -- but his 
ideas are valid within certain limits. In his experimental work he also 
studied the calcination of metals and proposed a means of distinguishing 
between acid and alkaline substances, which was the origin of the use of 
chemical indicators. He was also interested in trades and manufacturing 
processes.
      Boyle was born at Lismore Castle, Ireland, the seventh son and 14th 
child of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. In 1635 he was sent to Eton 
College, after which he spent the years from 1639 to 1644 with a tutor on 
the European continent, for the most part in Switzerland. From 1645 to 1655 
Boyle lived partly in Dorset, where he began his experimental work and 
wrote moral essays, some of which appeared in 1655 in "Occasional 
Reflections upon Several Subjects." One of his essays is reputed to have 
inspired the writing of "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift. Beginning 
in 1656 Boyle resided at the University of Oxford, later in 1668 moving to 
London where he lived with his sister Katherine, Lady Ranelagh.
      Boyle wrote prolifically on science, philosophy, and theology, 
acquiring great renown in his lifetime. He was frequently called on by 
foreigners of distinction. A devout Protestant, he promoted the spread of 
Christianity abroad, paying for translations of the New Testament into 
Irish and Turkish. He was a deist at heart, subscribing to what today would 
be termed the Theory of Intelligent Design, in which nature was a clocklike 
mechanism set in motion by the Creator and thereafter functioned according 
to secondary laws that could be studied by science. In his will, Boyle 
endowed a continuing series of lectures, or sermons "for proving the 
Christian Religion against notorious Infidels." The series continues to 
this day.

[To find a library copy of Boyle's "The Sceptical Chymist," go to RLG's 
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