NewsScan Daily, 30 July 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 30 July 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization
making significant and sustained contributions to the effective
management and appropriate use of information technology. NSD is
written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas, [email protected].
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Is HIV an Internet Problem?
        What Are They Doing Down on the Farm?
        Sony's Game Plan
        Tech Exodus: 500,000 Jobs Moving Overseas
        Online Matchmaking Sites Get Picky
        Big Mummy and Daddy Are Watching You

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Alfred Nobel

IS HIV AN INTERNET PROBLEM?
A presentation made at the 2003 National HIV Prevention Conference suggests 
that online chat rooms and Web sites are partly responsible for the fact 
that a growing number of U.S. gay and bisexual men are engaging in risky 
activities with partners they met on the Internet. New HIV diagnoses among 
those groups have jumped more than 17% since 1999, and 850,000 to 950,000 
Americans have the AIDS virus. Dr. Ron Valdiserri of the Centers for 
Disease Control in Atlanta says: "It's clear we need to reach gay and 
bisexual men with appropriate messages, not only in traditional high-risk 
settings but also online. (Washington Post 29 Jul 2003)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61453-2003Jul29

WHAT ARE THEY DOING DOWN ON THE FARM?
Answer: surfing and sending e-mail. An Agriculture Department survey has 
found that 48% of the 2 million farms in the U.S. are connected to the 
Internet. The next big push will be to upgrade from dialup to broadband 
connections. Because the scarcity of rural subscribers doesn't justify the 
cost of laying cable or building rural areas, Congress last year passed a 
farm bill pushed by President Bush, that provided $100 million in loans and 
loan guarantees over the next six years to encourage companies, cities and 
counties to invest in broadband in rural areas. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 
29 Jul 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6411841.htm

SONY'S GAME PLAN
Sony's new handheld PlayStation console will come with wireless capability 
that allows gamers in close proximity to play together and download game 
characters. "We will be using some challenging technologies," including 
wireless LAN (local area network), says Sony Computer Entertainment 
president Ken Kutaragi. "The PSP is a product with huge potential, 
following the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. The video game market may 
change in a big way." The new device, set to debut in the fourth quarter of 
2004, will process data at blazing speeds 10 times faster than the original 
PlayStation console. PSP games will come in the form of high-capacity 
optical discs created especially for the new device, and the PSP will also 
be able to play movies and music. The move pits Sony directly against 
Nintendo, which produces the market-leading GameBoy Advance device. 
(Reuters/CNet 30 Jul 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-5057609.html?tag=fd_top

TECH EXODUS: 500,000 JOBS MOVING OVERSEAS
One out of 10 jobs in the U.S. computer services and software sector could 
move overseas by the end of next year, according to a new report from 
Gartner Inc. And while professionals in the computer industry will be 
especially hard-hit, IT jobs in other sectors such as banking, health-care 
and insurance will feel the impact also, with one in 20 being exported to 
emerging markets such as Russia, India or other countries in Southeast 
Asia. "Suddenly we have a profession -- computer programming -- that has to 
wake up and consider what value it really has to offer," says Gartner VP 
and research director Diane Morello. Morello estimates that based on her 
preliminary calculations, at least 500,000 jobs will be lost to offshore 
outsourcing by then end of 2004. The trend toward "offshore outsourcing" is 
heating up as a political issue, with legislators in five states proposing 
bills that would require workers hired under state contracts be American 
citizens or fill a special niche that citizens cannot. (Reuters/CNN.com 30 
Jul 2003)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/30/jobs.oversees.reut/index.html

ONLINE MATCHMAKING SITES GET PICKY
As the market for online dating services grows increasingly competitive, 
sites are finding new ways to distinguish themselves -- by rejecting 
potential suitors. "I was stunned," said one eligible bachelor who failed a 
mandatory 40-minute personality test at eHarmony. "Is that even possible?" 
Another tactic -- ego-bashing: Match.com's personality test includes 
brutally frank assessment, including a list of "quirks" that might prove a 
turnoff with dates. Some sites have even figured out how to make money off 
those little neuroses: Emode.com offers a personality quiz that features a 
built-in ad for Weight Watchers, which pops up right after users rank how 
they feel about their attractiveness. Most sites are unabashedly 
unapologetic about their exclusive attitudes. EHarmony says it's rejected 
77,759 people since its launch in 1998, noting that not everyone is 
soul-mate material. Meanwhile, the guy who was rejected by eHarmony has 
found a way to turn his notoriety to his advantage: he has his friend 
introduce him to single women as the "guy that got rejected by an online 
dating site." "It's a great icebreaker," he notes. (Wall Street Journal 30 
Jul 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105951181219377900,00.html (sub req'd)

BIG MUMMY AND DADDY ARE WATCHING YOU
Some teachers in England say that Webcams should be installed in every 
classroom in order to involve parents in their children's education -- and 
let them see whether their children are misbehaving. One advocate said: 
"Bad behavior in class is a big issue throughout the school system, but 
teachers have to handle it on their own. If pupils knew their parents could 
see how they were behaving then they would think twice about disrupting 
classes." (Evening Standard 29 Jul 2003)
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/5965883?version=1

*****

FLASH CARD
      "It takes at least a couple of decades to realize that you were well 
taught. All true education is a delayed-action bomb assembled in the 
classroom for explosion at a later date. An educational fuse of 50 years 
long is by no means unusual." (Kenneth D. Gangel)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ALFRED NOBEL
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Swedish chemist, inventor and 
industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896), whose invention of 
dynamite earned him the vast fortune that became the financial basis for 
the establishment of the annual prizes bearing his family name.
      Nobel's invention of dynamite was the direct result of his desperate 
search for a safe way to handle the volatile explosive nitroglycerin. Nobel 
was a nitroglycerin manufacturer in business with his father when an 
explosion in their factory near Stockholm killed five people, one of whom 
was his younger brother Emil. After much experimentation he discovered that 
mixing liquid nitroglycerin with an earthen packing material such as 
kieselguhr would produce an explosive device with manageable volatility. In 
1867 he patented this mixture under the name dynamite.
      Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden to a family of engineers. 
At age 9, he moved with his family to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he and 
his brothers were given a first-class education in the humanities and 
natural sciences by private tutors. By age 16, he was a competent chemist 
and was fluent in English, French, German, Russian, and Swedish.
      He left Russia in 1850 to spend a year in Paris studying chemistry 
and four years in the United States working under the American-Swedish 
engineer John Ericsson, builder of the ironclad warship Monitor. Upon 
returning to St. Petersburg, he worked in his father's engineering firm 
until it went bankrupt in 1859. Nobel then returned to Sweden with his 
father and brother and started the explosives manufacturing business that 
led to his discovery of dynamite and the many subsequent inventions.
      Nobel proved to be a skillful entrepreneur and businessman. By 1865 
he was exporting nitroglycerine explosives to other countries in Europe, 
America and Australia. Over the years he founded factories and laboratories 
in some 90 different places in more than 20 countries.
      Although he lived in Paris much of his life he was constantly 
traveling. Victor Hugo at one time described him as "Europe's richest 
vagabond."
      Nobel, a pacifist at heart, hoped that the destructive powers of his 
explosive devices would actually help bring an end to wars. He was 
interested in social issues and derived intellectual pleasure from 
literature. He wrote poetry and once seriously considered writing a novel. 
He never married and he had no compunction in giving away his fortune. 
Nevertheless, when he died from a cerebral hemorrhage in San Remo, Italy, 
in 1896 and his will was opened, it came as a surprise that his fortune was 
to be used for prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, 
Literature and Peace.
      The will was contested by relatives and questioned by authorities in 
various countries, but the executors, two young engineers, succeeded in 
forming the Nobel Foundation to distribute the financial assets left by 
Nobel and to set up the now familiar procedures for awarding the Nobel Prizes.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/981024665X/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for "The Nobel Prize: The First 100 Years" (Agneta Wallin Levinovitz and 
Nils Ringertz, eds.) -- 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

SCHOLASTIC FIEFDOMS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8818
      Having served on the local school board for some seven years, and 
having "gifted" children who were not challenged by that school system, Mr. 
Parker's assessment cuts to the quick. The long process of convincing the 
other board members, hiring an innovative superintendent, and eventually 
getting new principals into the buildings, still does not get behind the 
classroom doors, where each individual teacher enjoys a impenetrable 
fiefdom. It seems the only effective method is for parents to take charge 
of their children's educational process, highlighting to the staff poor 
teachers for remediation (or avoidance!) and good ones for rewarding! The 
system can be changed, but not very quickly!... Another thoughtful article 
that got forwarded to many people --including our administrators! Thanks! 
(Gerry Visel)

VOTING MACHINE SOFTWARE SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO REVIEW
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8844
      I am encouraged that you ran the story in which Johns Hopkins 
University experts found SERIOUS FLAWS IN ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEMS. This 
is an enormous issue that needs to be brought to the light of day and 
investigated thoroughly, including by the high-tech community. Perhaps 
voting counting software should be open-source or subject to review by 
various high-tech groups or associations. Please keep pursuing this story. 
(Rick Cullen)

READING FEE FOR JUNK MAIL
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8865
      The difference is that I get 5 paper spams per day and 150 
electronic. When a vendor is confident enough of his market analysis to 
spend money to inform me of his product, then I am not complaining about 
paying for trash service to haul it away. If spammers want me to be happy 
and actually read their mail, then they need to figure out a way to pay me 
$1.00/minute, one minute minimum, including the time it takes to collect 
the fee. But that totally defeats the definition of spam, doesn't it? 
(David Kelly)

EXHORBITANT OUT-OF-COURT SETTLEMENTS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8872
      This sounds a lot like what the RIAA is doing in the United States, 
don't you think? Sue and settle out of court for exorbitant amounts? 
(Richard England)

RIAA AND CUSTOMER RELATIONS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8870
      The RIAA seems to have forgotten a basic rule of commerce. Don't pi** 
off the customers! (Glenn Beer)

INSENSITIVE GAMERS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8869
      Do you think these insensitive bastards gave a thought to how the 
families of the 9/11 victims would feel about someone making a profit on 
the deaths of their loved ones? and making it off their own government to 
boot? This is one of the most despicable ideas I have ever heard of. (Joy 
Putinta)

THE LONG, LONG GOODBYE
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8867
      The day that a DVD recorder includes a tuner, the ability to program 
recording for "time shifting," costs less than $100 and a re-writable DVD 
costs less than $1, MIGHT be a goodbye day for VHS. (Bob Schuchman)

YET ANOTHER COST OF SPAM
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8865
      We've just encountered another "cost of spam." One of our local 
school districts will no longer post any e-mail addresses or "mailto:" 
links on their web pages because of concerns over spam-bots scouring the 
pages and flooding the district networks with unwanted e-mails. (I am 
unsure as to whether or not this is a legitimate concern.) Staff are also 
to avoid having their e-mail addresses appear in other websites or forums 
as well.
      One of the great opportunities that the web offers, particularly to 
public institutions such as schools, is increased communication and 
accessibility. How sad that our fear of spam is now making some of us step 
away from that possibility. Yes, if I'm really motivated I can still track 
down that information through other means, but it takes me five or ten 
minutes longer to do so -- and time is money. Multiply that time over the 
thousands of people in the district trying to track down information that 
should be easily accessible, and the cost is quite high. I know that the 
idea of a national "do not spam" list is being discussed -- I wonder if 
they will include the option of blocking an entire domain? It would be 
quite handy to say "Please add '[email protected]' to the Do 
Not Spam list." As long as NewsScan gets through! (Conn McQuinn)

NO OFFENSE
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8865
      Sorry your NewsScan Daily occasionally gets blocked. I don't know 
whether I'm being protected from spam or from something more sinister. Not 
to worry though! When it happens, I just go to your web site and read the 
blocked issue -- complete with the offending (?) passage. I appreciate 
receiving the news and, especially, the Honorary Subscriber -- a daily 
history lesson. Thanks for your efforts. (Michael Howard)

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