From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Edupage, 1 April 1999
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 11:26:52 -0600
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Edupage, 1 April 1999. Edupage, a summary of news about information
technology, is provided three times a week as a service of EDUCAUSE, an
international nonprofit association dedicated to transforming higher
education through information technologies.
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TOP STORIES
California Virtual University Cuts Back
Microsoft Lawyers, Justice Dept. Hold Meeting
Yahoo To Buy Broadcast.Com For $5.6 Billion
IBM Action Encourages Web Sites To Post Clear Privacy Policies
Emachines Now 4th In U.S. PC Sales
ALSO
IRS Reports Increase In Electronic Filings By Taxpayers
Free Voicemail At The Price Of Listening To Ads
Professor Wants Y2K Jokes Banned On The Net
Honorary Subscriber: James Thurber
CALIFORNIA VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY CUTS BACK
California Virtual University will cease operations as an independent
distance-education institution, following reluctance on the part of the
venture's partners -- the state's three public-college systems and the
association of independent colleges -- to put up $1 million a year for
the next three years to cover operating costs. CVU will retain its
searchable Web site <http://www.california.edu>, which lists available
courses at more than 100 participating colleges and universities.
Funding already received by CVU, including $250,000 from the Alfred P.
Sloan foundation and $375,000 from corporate sponsorships, has already
been spent, in part on developing the Web site. CEO Stanley Chodorow
said in a mid-March e-mail message that "We just did not have enough
fuel to get up to takeoff speed." (Chronicle of Higher Education 2 Apr
99)
MICROSOFT LAWYERS, JUSTICE DEPT. HOLD MEETING
Lawyers for Microsoft met with representatives of the U.S. Justice Dept.
and 19 states for two hours on Tuesday in an effort to settle the
antitrust lawsuit that has dragged on for 62 trial days so far. Experts
say it could take another month or so to wrap up witness testimony.
One prominent attorney says it's doubtful that Microsoft will be able to
offer what Justice is looking for in a settlement: "One reason I would
suspect this will go nowhere is that Microsoft is shadow-boxing. They
don't really know until the Department of Justice tips its hand, at
least privately, what kind of a deal they need to beat." (Reuters/Los
Angeles Times 31 Mar 99)
YAHOO TO BUY BROADCAST.COM FOR $5.6 BILLION
Hoping to extend its audience and maintain its position as a leading
provider of cyberspace services (second only to AOL), Yahoo is ready to
spend $5.6 billion to acquire Broadcast.com, a site that offers a large
array of audio and video programming. Industry analyst Keith Benjamin
says that this very expensive acquisition is necessary for Yahoo to
remain competitive: "Yahoo won't be able to sustain its extraordinary
valuation unless they make acquisitions like Geocities and Broadcast.com
that help them capture more of their users' time. If they don't buy,
their market value will lose $5 billion over time." (New York Times 1
Apr 99)
IBM ACTION ENCOURAGES WEB SITES TO POST CLEAR PRIVACY POLICIES
IBM, which is the second-biggest advertiser on the Internet, has decided
to refrain from advertising on any Web sites that do not post clear
policies explaining to visitors of those sites such things as what
information about them is being collected and how it will be used, sold,
or otherwise disseminated for marketing purposes. IBM is the first
large company to link advertising and privacy policy in this way. (Wall
Street Journal 31 Mar 99)
EMACHINES NOW 4TH IN U.S. PC SALES
Irvine, CA.-based Emachines Inc., founded just last year as a joint
venture of the Korean manufacturers Trigem Computer and HKorea Data
Systems with the goal of producing personal computers costing less than
$600, now has a 9.9% share of the retail market for desktop computers.
The three companies that lead it in PC sales are Compaq,
Hewlett-Packard, and IBM (with, respectively, 30.9%, 28.9%, and 10.7%
market share shares). Emachines say it focuses on selling to first-time
buyers. (New York Times 31 Mar 99)
==================================================
IRS REPORTS INCREASE IN ELECTRONIC FILINGS BY TAXPAYERS
Although only 1.7 million of the 63.1 million tax returns filed so far
have been prepared on PCs and sent by Internet to the IRS, taxpayers are
getting increasingly comfortable with the idea of filing their returns
electronically and the number of electronic filings has gone up 156%
compared to last year. The long-term objective of the Internal Revenue
Service is for 80% of all returns filed electronically by 2007. (USA
Today 31 Mar 99)
FREE VOICEMAIL AT THE PRICE OF LISTENING TO ADS
Irvine, CA.-based Blue Diamond Software Inc. is offering a free
voicemail service to anyone willing to listen to advertising before the
messages are played. The company's chief executive says the service
(http://www.echobuzz.com) "is ideal for teens that want to stay
connected and maintain their privacy without having their own phone
line. The service also benefits parents, who get tired of taking
telephone messages." The service will be available toll-free to users
nationwide and will employ speech recognition technology. (Reuters/San
Jose Mercury News 31 Mar 99)
PROFESSOR WANTS Y2K JOKES BANNED ON THE NET
Insisting that "there's nothing funny about things that aren't funny,"
Professor Wiley T. Langweile of the Palo Alto (CA.)-based Institute of
Internet Reevaluation has written a searing letter to the New York Times
(1 Apr 99) protesting that the American media are so bored with the Year
2000 problem that they're mentioning it only once in every 94.5
sentences (by the professor's own hand-count). "Journalists are just
not giving enough publicity to this impending crisis. They're either
ignoring the problem entirely or making fun of it. Either way, they're
acting unconscionably. Y2K irreverence needs to be banned, especially on
the Internet." Dr. Langweile further charged in his letter that most
reporters fail to include in their stories a detailed explanation of
just what exactly the Y2K problem actually is and what it means to
everyday people. "The low level of media competence on this issue is
just tragic. Of course, there's Edupage. That's the big exception. Those
Gehl and Douglas people really know how to get to the point of a story,
without wasting words. They're the only ones I can think of who've
successfully explained Y2K in terms of the big hand and the little hand.
I say God bless them." (Edupage, 1 Apr 99)
HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: JAMES THURBER
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the great American humorist James
Thurber, who was one of the first authors to address the question, "Is
Sex Necessary?" [in a 1929 book of that name]. See the end of today's
Edupage.
[Note: The next issue of Edupage will be 6 April 1999.]
Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educause.edu) and Suzanne Douglas
(douglas@educause.edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017
Technical support for distributing Edupage is provided by Information
Technology Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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UPCOMING EDUCAUSE CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS:
Networking'99 Conference on Advanced Networking, Apr 28-30, 1999,
Washington, D.C.
http://www.educause.edu/netatedu/contents/events/apr99/
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HONORARY SUBSCRIBER
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American humorist James Thurber
(1894-1961), whose stories and cartoons were famous for snarling wives
and inscrutable animals. Much of his work appeared in the New Yorker
magazine.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, he attended Ohio State University. After
graduation he worked as a code clerk for the US government and in the
1920s took a number of reporting jobs at several newspapers. His first
book ("Is Sex Necessary?") made fun of psychoanalysis; it was coauthored
by E.B. White (best remembered nowadays as coauthor of another book
still widely found on college campuses, "Elements of Style").
Thurber was almost completely blind, as the result of a childhood
accident. (One of his brothers shot an arrow at him.)
His most famous story is probably "The Secret Life Of Walter
Mitty," the story of a hen-pecked suburbanite [please excuse the
politically incorrect adjective, but Thurber would no doubt insist on
it]. The mild-mannered Mitty enriches his experience through a "secret
life" of heroic fantasies in which he plays the major role. Below is an
excerpt from that story.
***
"We are going through". The Commanders voice was like thin ice
breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform with the heavily braided white
cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. "We can't make it sir.
It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you,
Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. "Throw on the power lights! Rev
her up to 8,500! We're going through!" The pounding of the cylinders
increased; tapocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander
stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and
twisted a row of complicated dials. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" he
shouted. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" repeated Lieutenant Berg. "Full
strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander. "Full strength in No.
3 turret!" The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge,
hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and
grinned. "The Old Man'll get us through," they said to one another. "The
Old Man ain't afraid of Hell!"...
"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are
you driving so fast for?"
"Hmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside
him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a
strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. "You were up to
fifty-five," she said. "You know I don't like to go more than forty. You
were up to fifty-five." Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in
silence, the roaring of the SN-202 through the worst storm in twenty
years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind.
"You're tensed up again," said Mrs. Mitty. "It's one of your days. I
wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw look you over."
*********
The story has one of the most famous endings in comic writing:
They [Mitty and his wife] went out through the revolving doors that
made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two
blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said,
"Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute." She was
more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain,
rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore,
smoking... He put his shoulders back and his heels together. "To hell
with the handkerchief," said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last
drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint,
fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect
and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty, the Undefeated,
inscrutable to the last.
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EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association dedicated to
transforming higher education through information technologies
************************************************************