Main   |   Metaforix Mail   |   Lois on the Web   |   Informaticons

. For previous issues, please click here.

METAFORIX MAIL

ON MY MIND: Online U
IN THE MEDIA:The New Appeal of e-Mail
INFORMATICON: Election Statistics
Cyberspeak: "Simputer"
SITE OF THE DAY: Writing on Hands
GUEST COLUMNISTS WANTED!

As you may have noticed, we've been experimenting with different publication days. The experimenting is over, and the winner is Tuesday.

From now on, Tuesday is the day to look for us in your inbox. We'll be there.

The holidays are nearly upon us.

Here in New York City, the weather is getting chillier. Christmas decorations and Salvation Army kettles are popping up even earlier than they did last year. And I'm finding it harder and harder to bypass the many homeless people jiggling their cups on street corners and subway cars.

The handful of change I keep in my pocket disappears all too quickly, and my modest contributions to homeless-and-hungry charities like City Harvest are just a drop in the bucket -- or the kettle, or the cup.

Many charitable organizations make it easy to donate online, using a credit card and a secure server. When money is tight, though, there's another alternative. "Click-to-donate" sites make a donation for each visitor who clicks the appropriate button and eyeballs the ads of the sponsors who actually underwrite the donations. Purchases from the sponsors frequently generate additional donations.

The grandparent of click-to-donate sites is The Hunger Site, one of several such sites operated by a for-profit Seattle company that seeks to do well by doing (as its name suggests) The Greater Good. You may click once every 24 hours to "donate free food" through the United Nations World Food Programme, Mercy Corps, and America's Second Harvest. It is not necessary to register or provide any personal information in order to participate, and company officials state that 100 percent of donations go directly to the charities.

Lee Seats's About.com
Some click-to-donate sites keep a percentage of advertiser donations for administrative expenses. Some indicate the general type of charitable organization your click supports (for example, "support for the arts") without specifying the actual recipient (for example, the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra). As Liane Guthro suggests in an excellent piece in PC World, it's wise to read the site's privacy policy, FAQs, and other fine print to understand where the money comes from and where it goes -- whether you are donating your own money by credit card or clicking to donate someone else's.

In any case, before you start basting the turkey or packing your suitcase for Thanksgiving, I encourage you to explore online easy giving. And, to you and yours, the happiest of holidays.

Cordially,

Lois C. Ambash, Editor
editor@metaforix.com

Online U

Herbert Allen Jr., an investment banker, and Mark Taylor, a former philosophy professor at the elite Williams College, have joined forces to create a for-profit, online company, the Global Education Network (GEN). Beginning in February, GEN will offer sophisticated courses taught by academic superstar

GEN's ultimate goal, however, is nothing short of revolutionizing university education by means of the Internet. GEN expects to challenge the academic high end in dramatic ways, just as for-profit "educational providers" and corporate universities have already begun to challenge state universities and community colleges.

Traub explores GEN's implications and the buzz it is creating -- or ought to be creating -- in the most rarefied heights of the Ivy Tower.

To read the full article, go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001119mag-onlineu.html

INFORMATICON
[a provocative quote, statistic, or piece of data]

The New Appeal of e-Mail
The new appeal of E-mail is the old appeal of print. It isn't instant; it isn't immediate; it isn't in your face. Written language gives you a hat and a Groucho nose and glasses; it's you there, but not quite you. E-mail has succeeded brilliantly for the same reason that the videophone failed miserably: what we actually want from our exchanges is the minimum human contact commensurate with the need to connect with other people. 'Only connect." Yes, but only connect."

"A 'simputer' is a simple computer. It was reported recently that India's computer businesses are planning to market one for about 9000 rupees (US$200), so making PC's about the same price as colour televisions. It's part of a governmental push to increase computer and Internet usage."

-- Michael Quinion

Okay, they've made them cheap. Now, if they could only make them really, really simple!

Writing on Hands
The Trout Gallery at Dickinson College, located in Carlisle, PA, features a fascinating exhibition that will soon be travelling to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. "Writing on Hands: Memory and Knowledge in Early Modern Europe" uses images from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries to focus on "the hand as a meeting place of matter, mind, and spirit."

The images seem curiously modern -- not only because the online catalog makes use of animation and sound, but also because the metaphorical meanings of the hand seem not to have changed greatly over the past several centuries. It is no surprise that sign language continues to thrive and grow. But palm reading, manual calculation, and various spiritual exercises of the hand have persisted as well.

Though I didn't notice any references to carpal tunnel syndrome, even that modern-day malady echoes Renaissanace links between hand and mind. This is an unusual and thought-provoking exhibition, definitely worth a look.

http://www.writingonhands.org/

GUEST COLUMNISTS WANTED!
Metaforix Mail seeks guest columns on how information technologies are (or are not) changing your world of work. Contributions are subject to editing for length and clarity.

If your column is accepted for publication, it will be permanently posted on the Metaforix web site, along with a link to your e-mail address or URL.

As a small token of appreciation, you will also receive a $10 gift certificate toward your next purchase at Amazon.com.

To submit a column for consideration, e-mail it to
editor@metaforix.com.
Talk to you soon, Lois

Please note that the links contained in Metaforix Mail are current as of the time of publication. Some of them may no longer be operative at the time you access past issues.

BACK TO TOP

To Volume 1, Issue 16  November 10, 2000
To Volume 1, Issue 21  November 21, 2000

© 2000 Metaforix Incorporated