Scout Report: Week ending December 9, 1994
The Scout Report is
a weekly publication provided by
InterNIC Information
Services to assist InterNauts in their ongoing quest to know what's new
on and about the Internet. It focuses on those resources thought to be of
interest to the InterNIC's primary audience, researchers and educators,
however everyone is welcome to subscribe and there are no associated
fees.
The Scout Report is posted on the InterNIC InfoGuide's
gopher and
WorldWideWeb servers
where you can easily follow links to resources of interest. Past issues are
stored on the InfoGuide servers for quick reference, and you can search the
InfoGuide server contents to find the items reported in all previous issues.
The Scout Report is also distributed in an HTML version for use on your own
host, providing fast local access for yourself and other users at your
site.
http://www.internic.net/infogu
ide.html
gopher is.internic.net choose
Information Services/Scout Report
Comments and contributions to the Scout Report are encouraged and can be
sent to
scout@internic.net.
See the end of the report for additional information and detailed access
and subscription instructions.
Highlights In This Week's Report:
World Wide Web
- The Bipartisan Commission on
Entitlement and Tax Reform was established by
President Clinton in November of 1993 to recommend long-term changes to
America's entitlement programs and tax structure. The Commission is
comprised of 32 Members -- including 22 Members of Congress and 10
distinguished private citizens and State and local leaders -- and is
chaired by Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE) and Senator Jack Danforth (R-MO). To
date, the Commission has approved an Interim Report to the President
outlining the nature and scope of America's long-term fiscal dilemma. The
Commission has also produced a document describing potential reforms to
America's entitlement programs and an interactive computer program using
the reform options. The Commission is due to make final recommendations to
the President by the end of the year.
Also: Try your hand at entitlement reform. Download Budget Shadows: a
challenging, fun, interactive program that puts you in the driver's seat
[...as seen on recent news programs... -- Scout]. See what effect
different policy decisions would have on entitlement programs, the U.S.
budget, and U.S. citizens. Decide for yourself what choices and
trade-offs you think the federal government should make to address our
fiscal challenges. NOTE: You must have Lotus for Windows to run the
program.
- China News Digest
(CND) is a voluntary non-profit organization aiming at
providing news and other information services to readers who are concerned
primarily about China-related affairs. All CND services are free of
charge, and we rely on CND volunteers to make this possible. CND is
independent of any other organizations and strives to be impartial at the
issues and news it reports. The history of CND began on March 6, 1989.
Topics include: News digest about China and Chinese; Comprehensive Weekly
Chinese Magazine in the Chinese Language; Collection of Chinese Classics
(Lao Tsu, Chuang Tsu, Confucius, some novels); Software (public domain
and shareware) to read/write Chinese code; Scenery pictures of China; map
of China; Chinese calendar (check for the next Chinese New Year); Links to
web sites in Mainland China and Taiwan; China Internet Info.
- City.Net is one of the most
comprehensive international guides to
communities around the world. City.Net provides easy and timely access to
information on travel, entertainment, and local business, plus government
and community services for all regions of the world.
- Environment Canada's Green Lane
(Eastern Region) provides a wide variety
of regional and national environmental information, including: the latest
regional weather forecasts, satellite photos, maps & radar images; the
complete texts of many of its most popular national publications,
including primers designed to assist teachers; the answers to some of the
questions that Atlantic Canadians most frequently ask when they phone or
write to the Department; the direct phone numbers of the Department's
regional experts on numerous issues and initiatives; details and documents
regarding regional public consultation meetings; news about regional
public environmental events; descriptions of the department's funding
programs, including a guide on how to prepare funding proposals; and, the
complete text of its environmental legislation, regulations, guidelines,
codes of good practice, and related policies.
- Come visit the Grand Canyon National Park home
page. These pages are still
under development but what's out there is pretty neat. Check out the trail
descriptions, maps, and don't miss the photos -- all under 100K. Nice work
done by a single author, who obviously loves the Park. -- Scout.
- Heriot-Watt
University Library, Edinburgh, U.K. is pleased to announce its
new WWW home page. The service gives information about the Library, its
collections, and services, and an HTML version of the Library's _INTERNET
RESOURCES_ Newsletter. Although directed towards, and originally
distributed to, staff and students at Heriot-Watt, it may be of use to
anyone interested in the Internet and its resources. Each issue contains
comments and short articles on topics of current interest, plus lists of
new and recent resources.
Gopher
- CALI - The Center for
Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction -- CALI offers a
growing library of computer-based instructional exercises on a variety of
law-related subjects. At present, nearly seventy exercises provide
instruction in trial advocacy, civil procedure, torts, evidence,
professional responsibility, wills and trusts, etc. In addition, CALI's
Legal Education Automation Project (LEAP) distributes a broad array of
software produced by other vendors at special discounts through a
Third-Party Software Program. Membership with CALI is open to all members
of AALS. [Newsletters, archives, and a descriptions of computer-based
training in 19 areas of law are available on the gopher. The actual
courseware is available to members only. --Scout]
- Carnegie Mellon University -
Physics Department Gopher
- Institute of Informatics
(in Hungarian)
- Legi-Slate Gopher
Server: Legi-Slate is pleased to provide free
unrestricted access to portions of the Legi-Slate Gopher Service to
Internet users. The Legi-Slate Gopher Service allows all users to locate
any bill or resolution introduced since the beginning of the 103rd
Congress by number (requires Gopher+ client), date, sponsor and chamber
and type. Once a specific bill or resolution has been selected, the
following documents are available: Title & Current Status, Congressional
Research Service Bill Digest, Names of Cosponsors, List of Bill Text
Versions Available, List of Committee Reports Filed, Counterpart,
Companion Bills. [Several other services are available free of charge, and the
good news is that free vs. subscriber services are clearly marked in the
"About Legi-slate" file at the top of the first menu. -- Scout]
- Medical College of Georgia
Gopher: Pointers to Biomedical Research at
MCG, other Health Sciences Resources on the 'Net, and more. --Scout
- NASA K-12 Internet
Initiative (Quest): Currently one of the top sites for
quality K-12 information on the 'Net. Short lists of carefully selected
sites and collections. Directories include: Getting US Teachers Online,
Teacher's Guide to Using Internet, NASA K-12 Interactive Projects,
Internet Resources (for K-12), and NASA Network Applications & Information
Gopher. -- Scout
- NSERC/CRSNG Gopher: The Internet
Gopher server at the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) offers bilingual, Internet
access to NSERC news and publications, including some of our guides and
newsletters.
- The University of Colorado
Health Sciences Center is one of four campuses
of the University system; it houses the schools of Dentistry, Medicine,
Nursing, and Pharmacy, University Hospitals, and Central Services
Administration.
- World Cancer Research Fund gopher
is still under construction, but offers
links to WCRF organizations in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and USA.
Information offered in the form of newsletters and brochures. -- Scout
Email
- New subscribed list on the subject of academic sexual
correctness(ASC-L).
ASC-L is an outgrowth of CASE (Consenting Academics for Sexual Equity),
founded in early 1994 by both professors and students to combat a
concerted "feminist" campaign against students and professors who had
become involved in an intimate(romantic) relationship. CASE dealt with
only one small area of the current emphasis on sexual correctness in
academia. Consequently, the need for a network that focused on all aspects
of academic sexual correctness became apparent; the ASC-L is a response to
that need. ASC-L encompasses all aspects of campus sexual control issues
-- irrespective of their ideological origins, such as sexual consent
issues, sexual discrimination issues (irrespective of the subjects of the
discrimination) and attempts to regulate sexual content of speech on
campus or sexual content of course materials. The principles of consent,
privacy and academic freedom are the core principles which have motivated
the founding of ASC-L. For more information send mail to:
request@beach1.csulb.edu
- A new resource has been made available from the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas - a tradeshow listserver, for anyone interested in
tradeshows,
conventions and meetings, world-wide.
send Email to: listproc@nevada.edu
- in the body of the message type:
- subscribe tradeshow TYPE-YOUR-NAME-HERE
NetBytes
- Did you miss that announcement of a new Web site, service, or software?
Don't despair! You will likely find it, and in hypertext form, too, on
webNews. This
evolving Web service has been recently updated, and now
contains over 700 announcements gleaned from selected USENET News groups
since March of this year. Listings are updated monthly and are in
descending order by date. A comprehensive hyperindex of terms (the
HyperDex) is provided and should be your starting point for subject
browsing of the webNews article archive. [Last updates appear to be from
November 15, but the index may prove useful if you're looking for a
specific post. -- Scout]
- Spider's Pick of the
Day: There was such a tremendous response to being
the Cool Site of the Day on November 11th, that it seemed only logical
(Mr Spock told me to do it) to create the Spider's Pick of the Day. It
may be a site, a sub-page of a site, a file, or darn near anything.
Send those cards and letters to.....
- Santa's Sleigh rides the Information Superhighway: Children all over
the world are now able to send their letters to Santa via the Internet.
Santa will be responding to all letters. (North Pole Productions, a
division of Internet Access Inc, Ottawa, Canada.)
santa@northpole.net
- Send me your Christmas list on the Internet, Santa says: ALBANY, NY
and the NORTH POLE--In a move applauded worldwide as an innovative effort
aimed at making it easier for children and their parents to reach him
with their Christmas lists, Santa Claus announced today that he has opened
an address on the Internet, the global information network. "Effective
immediately, anyone around the world who cares to share their Christmas
wish list with me by using this new-fangled electronic mail thingy can now
get in touch with me almost immediately," Santa said. "I've always prided
myself on my ability to be nearly everywhere at once," Santa said.
"Advances in computer telecommunications have made my job that much
easier." Santa will read and reply to all electronic mail sent. (Newslink
13, Albany, New York)
santa@newslink13.com
- Santa says: Ho Ho Ho...Merry Christmas to everyone around the world.
That's right my little friends, I've joined the Information Highway and
getting ready to take my cybersleigh around the world! I know you've all
been good boys and girls this year! I'm waiting for you to send 'ol Santa
that special wish list you've been making all year. If you hurry, I'll
have enough time before Christmas and send you back a personal reply from
the North Pole. The Elves and I are waiting to hear from you. I'll be a
bit hungry when I get to your house, so don't forget to leave some cookies
and milk under the tree for 'ol Santa and the reindeer. (Delphi Internet
Services).
SANTA@delphi.com
Gopher tunnel to:
- The 2nd Annual Delphi Internet Services
Holiday Gopher is now available
for accessing through the Internet. You'll find all sorts of holiday items
from around the world! Recipes, songs, stories, books, graphics, sounds,
plant and Christmas Tree care tips, road conditions, ski reports, weather
forecasts for the U.S., Canada, and other International locations. The
Holiday Gopher is "G" rated, every item was read before being placed
online! You won't find any off color jokes, stories, or "strange"
recipes. It's safe for the kids to be left alone. So gather the family
around the warm glow of your monitor. Everyone will find something on the
Delphi Holiday Gopher. Contributions are welcome. (Delphi Internet
Services).
And on the Web....
- Last year, the front page of the Christmas Day New York Times talked
about how you could do `finger xmastree@cygnus.com' to find out the
current state of the Christmas tree in the offices of Cygnus Support.
Well, it's back again this year. But, we wouldn't want you to be bored!
"Oh, ho hum, that same boring thing all over again...been there, saw
that." So to follow the example of a few million enthusiasts, the
increasingly-popular World Wide Web is now toting its very own Christmas
tree, which is so interactive it's almost like it's in your home. (Well,
not quite. But if you'd like to send some wrapped gifts, I'm sure we
wouldn't be upset.) Along with getting to look at a small photo of the
tree when you first connect to it, you may: choose to see a full-size
version of that picture -- they are updated every two minutes; choose to
watch an MPEG movie of the tree which is 20 frames long, so you can watch
the lights blink, etc. This is updated every fifteen minutes; vote on the
different features of the tree, and every fifteen minutes the system will
do the vote count and change the tree accordingly; send any one of ten
random cards to a given email address; find out the technical details of
how it was done, if you're really that interested. If you have any
comments, suggestions, or complaints (come to think of it, you can keep
the complaints), write to webmaster@cygnus.com.
- Visit The North Pole and participate in The Cyberspace Christmas
Campaign, which allows corporations to adopt local non-profit groups and
pledge money. Each time you--the Digital Tourist --visits a page about
these groups, the corporation gives a dime. Think of all this as a digital
webathon, a way of doing good without having to look at Jerry Lewis for 12
hours in a telethon. Put your feet up, click away, and let somebody else
pay! The "Santa on a Shingle" program packages up a subset of our Santa
pages so that you can pull them back to your home computer as a compressed
archive that is roughly the size of a floppy disk (a shingle). Many of our
more popular Santa images and audio are in the archive so you'll get
snappy response time. (Internet Mulitcast Service).
- Children will be able to browse through the north pole and read
messages from Santa, his elves, the reindeer and get a North Pole weather
report. our 'I E-Mailed Santa' button (North Pole Productions, a division
of Internet Access Inc, Ottawa, Canada).
- When Santa Claus comes to
town this year he will be taking an entirely
different route. He has decided to harness his reindeer and hop in his
sleigh a little earlier than usual to spread his Christmas cheer over the
Information Superhighway. Users will be able to access a customizable
letter from Santa, the latest Polar weather conditions, some holiday
recipes and a special Christmas greeting. They will also be able to
preview exciting Christmas gifts and toys which can be ordered from St.
Nick's virtual workshop. (USA CityLink).
About the Scout Report
The
Scout Report is a
weekly publication offered by
InterNIC Information
Services to the Internet community as a fast, convenient way
to stay informed about network activities. Its purpose is to combine in
one place the highlights of new (and newly-discovered) online resources
and other announcements seen on the Internet during the preceding week.
A wide range of topics are included in the Report with an emphasis on
resources thought to be of interest to the InterNIC's primary audience,
the research and education community. Each resource has been verified
for substantial content and accessibility within a day of the release of
the Report.
The Scout Report is provided in multiple formats -- electronic mail,
gopher, World Wide Web, and HTML. The gopher and World Wide Web
versions of the Report include links to all listed resources. The Report
is released every weekend.
In addition to the ascii version, the Scout Report is distributed
in HTML format via a separate mailing list. This allows sites to easily
add the Scout Report to their local WorldWideWeb servers each week,
providing fast access for local users. Subscription information for the
scout-report-html mailing list is included below. Note that permission
statements appear on both versions of the Scout Report, and we ask that
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Thank you!
If you haven't yet subscribed or told your friends and colleagues, now
is the time. Spread the news by word-of-net. Join thousands of your
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Comments and contributions to the Scout Report are encouraged and can be
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-- InterNIC Info Scout (sm)
Scout Report Access Methods
Resource Addressing Conventions
After each resource in the Scout Report one or more network addresses are
listed. In all cases a convention is used for listing the network
address of each resource. It is assumed that users recognize the type of
address and know how to use it. However, for those users unfamiliar with
the Internet we provide here the order in which addresses are listed (by
network tool) and instructions for accessing additional information in
the InterNIC InfoGuide about each network tool. A brief explanation of
one tool, WWW is included below.
The four network tools referenced most often in the Scout Report are
World Wide Web, gopher, email, and FTP. Occasionally WAIS and Telnet
addresses are also listed.
After each resource at least one address is listed, and sometimes more.
This is because some resources are available through multiple network
tools. The network tool addresses are always listed in the same order
after each resource:
- World Wide Web (WWW)
- Gopher
- FTP
- Email
- Telnet
- WAIS
A WWW address is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and always
begins with a string of characters followed by a colon and two forward
slashes. For example:
http://www.internic.net/
gopher://gibbs.oit.unc.edu:70/11/research.d/grants.d
ftp://ftp.digex.net/pub/access/hecker/internet/slip-ppp.txt
To access the resource through the WWW, you will need a WWW client
installed on your host computer. Clients are available for all major
computer platforms, including Macintosh, PC, and UNIX. To use a WWW
client on your computer, you will need a TCP/IP connection to the
Internet, either through a dedicated line connection or a SLIP/PPP
connection. See the
InfoGuide for
additional information about the World
Wide Web and for sites which archive WWW clients. For more information
about SLIP/PPP, which can be used over a dial-up connection, see the
document listed in the NetBytes section above.
gopher://is.internic.net/11/infoguide/using-internet/basic-resources/email/
Gopher to: is.internic.net
Choose: Information Services/Using the Internet/
Send email to mailserv@is.internic.net
and in the
body of the message type:
send INDEX
Copyright 1994 General Atomics.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout
Report provided the copyright notice, this permission notice, and the two
paragraphs below are preserved on all copies.
The InterNIC provides information about the Internet and the resources on
the Internet to the US research and education community under the
National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement No. NCR-9218749. The
Government has certain rights in this material.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in
this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, General Atomics,
AT&T, or Network Solutions, Inc.
scout@is.internic.net
guide@is.internic.net