The Scout Report - April 18, 1997

April 18, 1997

A Publication of Internet Scout
Computer Science Department, University of Wisconsin

A Project of the InterNIC

The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators, the InterNIC's primary audience. However, everyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML). Subscription instructions are included at the end of each report.

KIDS Report, April 17 Edition--"Planets"
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/KIDS/archive/KIDS-970417.html
KIDS Report subscription information:
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/KIDS/#subscribe
The latest issue of Net Scout's KIDS (Kids Identifying and Discovering Sites) Report, produced by 7th grade students at Cherokee Middle School (Madison, Wisconsin, Metropolitan School District), contains eleven annotated sites related to the planets. Among them are the Hubble Space Telescope's "Greatest Hits," SEDS (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space), the Never Ending Quiz, and Windows to the Universe. The KIDS Report is available on the KIDS website and also via email subscription. Subscription information can be found at the URL above. [JS]
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Experimental CPI Using Geometric Means--US Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://stats.bls.gov/cpigmtoc.htm
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics will shortly begin an experimental Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers using a "geometric mean formula to combine individual price quotations at the lower level of aggregation." The experimental index will be called "the Experimental CPI Using Geometric Means or CPI-U-XG." BLS claims the new index will adjust the CPI to reflect "the fact that consumers can and do change spending patterns as relative prices change." The experimental index will not replace the current "fixed-weight Laspeyres formula" CPI-U (All Urban Consumers) or CPI-W (Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers) indexes. Beginning April 22, 1997, the Geometric Mean Index will be released monthly. The site contains information about the new index, a research paper explaining it, and a monthly CPI-U-XG table from December 1990 to the present. [JS]
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US Charter Schools
http://www.uscharterschools.org/
Provided by WestEd, a California-based non-profit education research organization, the California State University Institute for Education Reform, and the US Department of Education, the US Charter Schools site this week begins its "60-day trial." The site will remain publicly available after this period, but will be revised based on user feedback. The primary audiences for the site are people actually involved in creating, sponsoring and running charter schools, as well as technicians, scholars, and policy makers. Resources are organized into four main categories: starting and running your school, school information exchange, resource directory and links, and searching other charter school sites. There is also a good overview of the charter school concept. The depth of information presented on the site is impressive, with many links to additional resources from other providers. Educators, parents, and anyone concerned about the charter school movement should benefit from this new resource. [ML]
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Scott's Botanical Links
http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/bot-linx/
Professor Scott Russell of the University of Oklahoma Department of Botany and Microbiology maintains this meta-site, which is really two sites in one. It contains a "link of the day" archive (five days a week), consisting of rated and annotated sites, available via the web page and a mailing list. These links are then incorporated into a subject hierarchy (Site Index) in over forty topics including cell biology, horticulture, dendrology, and phytopathology, among others. Particularly authoritative sites are marked with an exclamation point. The site is searchable. Aimed at an "advanced high school (AP-biology) and college level" audience, it has a somewhat whimsical tone, but the time and care that went into selecting, annotating, and rating hundreds of sites is evident in the quality of the final product. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
listserv@ou.edu
In the body of the message type:
subscribe botlinx firstname lastname
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Documenting the American South: The Southern Experience in 19th Century America
http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/
Status report on available and upcoming texts:
http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/project/status.html
To remedy the fact that "most information about 19th-century America comes from Northerners," the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has begun a text digitization project of documents on the South by Southerners. At present, the site contains fourteen narratives on slavery, thirteen diaries/memoirs, and twenty autobiographies. Texts are available in SGML (the free SoftQuad Panorama viewer for Windows is required) and HTML, and selected texts are accompanied by author information, title pages, illustrations, and other information. Although works are not searchable, author and title indices are available. As the site grows, it intends to "document the cultural history of the American South." [JS]
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US Geological Survey Water Resources Applications Software
http://water.usgs.gov/software/
Mirror site:
http://www.geogr.uni-jena.de/software/
The USGS offers fifty software programs (at present) that are freely available. The programs can be browsed alphabetically or in five subject categories. Each program is accompanied by computer platform requirements, a summary of the program, readme files, pointers to decompression utilities, and documentation information (including selected downloadable user's manuals). Summaries contain pointers to other related programs, when available. Note that most software packages are available on AViiON DG/UX or UNIX platforms at present, but selected packages are available for other platforms as well. [JS]
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Feminism and Globalization: The Impact of the Global Economy on Women and Feminist Theory--Global Legal Studies Journal
http://www.law.indiana.edu/glsj/vol4/no1/toc.html
Global Legal Studies Journal--Indiana University School of Law
http://www.law.indiana.edu/glsj/glsj.html
Indiana University's Global Legal Studies Journal, a semiannual "peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal focusing on the intersections of global and domestic legal regimes,markets, politics, technologies, and cultures," is highlighted by a symposium issue each fall. The latest symposium issue concerns feminism and globalization of market forces, and contains seven articles. The symposium takes the form of three major articles and four responses to those articles. The articles pertain to "feminist analytics of the global economy, the effects of globalization on the relationship between privatization and public responsibility and how this dynamic impacts the future of women across the globe, and strategic sisterhood." Previous symposium issues have covered environmental law, global migration, and globalization of law, politics, and markets. [JS]
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WASTE Mailing List and Usenet Newsgroup
http://www.cedar.univie.ac.at/arch/waste/about.html
sci.environment.waste
This unmoderated mailing list/newsgroup provides a forum for scientific discussion on the one hand by people who are distressed by the negative effects that waste can have on the natural environment (soil, water, air and the seas) and on the other hand by people involved in collecting, fractioning, conditioning, recycling or dumping wastes. It is intended for the integrated discussion of all waste-related topics. Web-based subscription is available (see above URL). [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
majordomo@cedar.univie.ac.at
In the body of the message type:
subscribe waste your@email.address
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Healthfinder--US Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.healthfinder.gov/
This site, recently opened by the Department of Health and Human Services, acts as a "gateway consumer health information web site." In addition to DHHS agencies, 12 other federal agencies provide health-related information. At the heart of the site is a searchable and browsable interface of available resources. Users can browse resources alphabetically by using a simple drop-down menu search form, or by selecting from any of 31 major subject topics to find annotated organization and/or web resources. The "pubs" section features key word searching for online publications and contains a large list of publications catalogs as well as pointers to seventeen medical dictionaries and glossaries. The "news" section contains press, DHHS, and selected state health department news. The site provides one-stop shopping for a vast array of consumer health information. [JS]
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1996 Fortune 500
http://pathfinder.com/fortune/fortune500/
Global 500:
http://pathfinder.com/fortune/1997/specials/g500/intro.html
From General Motors Corporation ($168 billion in revenues) to Vencor, Inc. ($2.58 billion), details on the 500 companies in the latest Fortune 500 list are available at the Fortune site. The list can be viewed by revenue, alphabetically (index) for stock price information, or by industry for over fifty industries. There are also medians for nine earnings categories, and top performers for twelve. A CEO list is included and the site is searchable by company, industry, or CEO. Balance sheets and stock snapshots are provided for most companies listed, as are web links when available. There are also several articles. Note that the list, medians, and top performers are also available in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, and the .pdf version of the list also contains information in thirteen balance sheet catagories. For those interested in international information, Fortune also offers a Global 500 site. [JS]
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The Xerox PARC Map Viewer
http://mapweb.parc.xerox.com/map/
Since June 1993, the Map Viewer, provided by the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, has served interactive web-based maps of the world. Maps are available in three projections (equirectangular, sinusoidal, ellipse) and views may be zoomed in or out. The world map has viewable features, including borders and rivers; note, however, that political boundaries are based on 1985-90 data. The United States map is much more detailed and includes features such as borders, rivers, roads, railroads, and federal lands. All features can be viewed at once or toggled separately. [TB]
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EURO--Proposed currency of the EU
http://europa.eu.int/euro/
If you've been anxious to get your first look at the new currency of the European Union, the Euro, this website will provide the information you seek. Available in eleven languages, three connection speeds, and Java and non-Java versions, the site promotes the proposed currency with enthusiasm. Animated images display the new notes, which flip from front to back to show both sides. A timetable for implementation of the Euro is available, as well as speeches on the new currency from Yves-Thibault de Silguy, Member of the European Commission with special responsibility for economic and monetary affairs. Background documents from the Presidency of the European Council are also provided. Users looking for a balanced critique of the idea of a unified currency should probably look elsewhere. [ML]
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Academy of American Poets [RealAudio, frames]
http://www.poets.org/
April is National Poetry Month and the Academy of American Poets website will provide all the details. Founded in 1934, the Academy supports American poets at all stages of their careers and fosters the appreciation of contemporary poetry. Follow Poetry Exhibits to Current Exhibits for poetry selections. The Calendar of Events, Academy Readings, and Residencies can assist in locating public events near you. However, the highlight of the site is the Listening Booth, offering RealAudio renditions of fifty poems (at present) by their authors. The site is searchable. [ATW]
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TALK-ABOUTDOGS--Man's best friend discussion, storytelling
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/talk-aboutdogs.html
The TALK-ABOUTDOGS mailing list is for discussions about "my companion dog," stories about war, working, adopted, foster, or orphan dogs. It is a place to tell unusual stories about lost or found dogs. Especially welcome are stories about when your dog's life ends and you need a place to share your feelings. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu
In the body of the message type:
subscribe talk-aboutdogs firstname lastname
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Beatnik--Interactive Music Plug-in and Developer Software [JavaScript]
http://www.headspace.com/beatnik/
New from Headspace is the free Beatnik browser plug-in, which promises to bring musical interactivity to web pages. Unlike plug-ins that simply play music while the user browses, Beatnik allows the user to interact with the music, altering the playback or triggering new variations through an embedded JavaScript interface; the plug-in also plays other standard non-interactive music formats. Composers must buy the commercial Beatnik Editor (available for PowerMacintosh only) to create music in the proprietary Rich Music Format. No server modifications are needed to serve RMF files. Currently, only certain users can take advantage of the plug-in: those running Netscape Navigator 3.0 or higher on PowerMacs and Pentium PCs (running Windows 95/NT and with Microsoft's DirectSound 2.0 or higher installed). The Beatnik site contains several examples of interactive music design, and offers substantial user and developer documentation. [ML]
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InterVU Player Plug-in
http://www.intervu.net/support/audio_video.html
Video Guide:
http://www.intervu.net/partners/menu.html
InterVU has developed a plug-in by the same name that allows users to view streaming MPEG videos (including audio tracks) and plays back videos from either a hard drive or browser cache. The player also allows a preview of the first frame before beginning download. The plug-in works on the 32-bit version of Netscape Navigator (not the 16-bit version) and is available for either the Macintosh or PC (Windows 95/NT). InterVU can be played from any HTML server, including videos embedded within Web pages. The plug-in itself is about 600K. The Video Guide features links to sites using this innovative plug-in--including footage from Major League Baseball's archive, Lifetime Television programs, and a video from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. [AG]
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A Brief History of the Internet, Version 3.1--The Internet Society
http://www.isoc.org/internet-history/
The most interesting thing about the latest version of The Internet Society's history of the Internet is the list of authors. The history of the Internet, is, in great measure, the history of the people who made it. This document is written by many of those people, including Vinton Cerf (TCP/IP), Leonard Kleinrock (packet switching theory), Robert Kahn (ARPANET), Jon Postel (RFCs and IP number assignments), David Clark (simple TCP implementation), and Stephen Wolff (NSFNET), among others. Brief History stresses four areas: technological evolution, operations and management, social aspects, and commercialization aspects. [JS]
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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1994-1997. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout Report provided the copyright notice and this paragraph is preserved on all copies. The InterNIC provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation: NCR-9218742. 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 University of Wisconsin - Madison, the National Science Foundation, AT&T, or Network Solutions, Inc.

The Scout Report (ISSN 1092-3861) is published weekly by Internet Scout

Susan Calcari
Jack Solock
Matthew Livesey
Teri Boomsma
Aimee D. Glassel
Amy Tracy Wells
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The Scout Report - April 18, 1997

April 18, 1997

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