The Scout Report -- Volume 9, Number 40

The twentieth issue of the second volume of the MET Report is available. Its Topic in Depth section offers Web sites and comments about Precision Machining.

http://www.lannan.org/

The Lannan Foundation was founded in 1960 by J. Patrick Lannan, Sr., a self-educated scholar and financier who believed in the cultural importance of innovative and controversial forms of visual and literary art. As the mission statement notes, the Foundation supports these types of long-term projects, along with "inspired Native activists in rural indigenous communities." Specifically, the program areas supported by the Foundation include the visual arts, literature, indigenous communities, and cultural freedom. At the homepage, visitors may learn about these various initiatives, along with the readings and programs sponsored by the Foundation, many of which take place in Santa Fe, where the Foundation is located. There are two very valuable resources on the site for the general public, namely the audio archives section and the Bookworm area. The audio archives contain over 65 audio programs that feature some of the many writers that have been part of the Reading & Conversations series sponsored by the Foundation. Visitors can listen to any of these recordings, which feature such individuals as Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, Mark Strand, Eduardo Galeano, and Billy Collins. The Bookworm section contains archived programs from the nationally syndicated radio interview program, and features such writers as Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, and Oliver Sacks. [KMG]

http://www.journalism.org/

Working together to establish an internet presence, journalism.org is the brainchild of the Project of Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists. The Web site effectively serves as a portal and utility for persons interested in journalism, and contains a catalog of tools, techniques and ideas, empirical research, job links, and numerous other helpful materials for the general public, practicing journalists, and journalism students. Visitors can move to any of the site's sections from the homepage, and they will most certainly want to peruse the new quarterly online newsletter that is available. The site also features a number of research reports for the general public, dealing with such topics as Jessica Lynch: Media Myth-Making in the Iraq War, Quality and the Bottom Line and Does Ownership Matter in Local Television News. Overall, the site is a good resource for persons interested in print and television journalism, and will be of specific interest to those studying journalism. [KMG]

http://www.eurostadiums.com/

Stretching from Russia in the east to Portugal in the west, Eurostadiums.com is dedicated to providing a host of images and information about the hundreds of soccer stadiums across Europe. Visitors can feel free to use the search engine provided on the homepage, or they may elect to use a clickable map of Europe to browse through the stadiums currently covered by the site. The stadiums of the United Kingdom are well covered, ranging from Celtic Park (home of Celtic Glasgow) in Scotland all the way to The Den in London, which serves as the home of the Millwall Football Club. As a bonus feature, some prominent soccer stadiums in other countries (such as the United States, Germany and Japan) are also covered. Finally, visitors may also sign the site's guestbook and look through a list of additional soccer related Web sites. [KMG]

http://www.saskstories.ca/

Designed for young people, this multimedia site that takes as its theme About Work was funded by the government of Saskatchewan, and provides a number of insights into the various work activities of people in this Prairie province from the First Nations groups to the present day. Using an embedded timeline, visitors can elect to browse through one of the four temporal periods, and read stories about various work activities, including such activities as fur trading and buffalo hunts. Each written story is complemented by various images, and the text contains highlighted terms for which additional information is offered in a small balloon that appears above the text. Each timeline section also contains a short video, a highly interactive map of the region (with themes that can be toggled on and off), and a help feature. Visually stimulating and interactive, this well-designed learning tool will help young people learn about this sometimes neglected region of Canada. [KMG]

http://www.hesa.ac.uk/

Started in 1993 after a government white paper called for more coherence in the reporting and collection of higher education statistics in the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is "the central source for higher education statistics." Not surprisingly, the site features a detailed area devoted to publications and data sets available from the HESA, some of which are available for no cost on the Web site, and others which may be ordered on CD-ROM. There are also a number of data sets available at no charge that may be viewed and printed, or downloaded for free. The data sets are mostly from 1994 to 2002, and include statistics on students (such as ethnicity, subject of study, and institution level), staff, and institutional incomes and expenditures. The site is rounded out with a collection of related links that lead to related government bodies and funding councils. [KMG]

http://www.cio.com/research/behavior/

This virtual research center has numerous resources that address the role human behavior plays in the development of the Internet and, conversely, how the Internet affects human behavior. Most of the site's content is in the form of online articles that deal with some aspect of this broad topic. The articles are generally from two magazines published by the company that operates the site, but occasionally an external source is cited as well. Several topic pages separate the site into distinct themes, such as Privacy and Ethics, Human-Web Interaction, and more. Many excellent insights into the "relationship between humanity and the Web" can be gleaned from the articles that are archived at this site. This site is also reviewed in the October 10, 2003 NSDL MET Report. [CL]

http://www.unc.edu/awmc/

Located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Ancient World Mapping Center is funded by the UNC College of Arts and Sciences and the American Philological Association. The Center is primarily designed to promote the usage of cartography and geographic information science within the field of ancient studies. The Center's main web page begins with a host of recent news events related to ongoing research dealing with the ancient world from various fields, including geography, archaeology, and history. Equally helpful is the New Sites and Finds area, which gathers together new and useful sites dedicated to investigating various aspects of the ancient world. Of course there is also the map room area where visitors can download any one of a number of detailed maps (many of which have been created by the staff at the Center) of the ancient world. Some of these maps include those of Byzantine Constantinople, Ptolemaic Egypt, and several of ancient Greece. [KMG]

http://www.classicsunveiled.com

Classics Unveiled was developed by Neil Jenkins, Sumair Mirza and Jason Tang as a way to teach the web-browsing public about the various aspects of the ancient world, ranging from the massive world of Greek and Roman mythology, Roman history, Roman culture, and the Latin language and its pervasive influence on English. The site is divided into four primary areas, and visitors may opt to browse through any of them and their accompanying features, which include primary extended essays and informative games and quizzes. In Rome Exposed for example, users will learn about Roman residences, entertainment, attire, cuisine, and several other aspects of Roman culture and mores. In MythNET visitors can learn about the twelve Olympian gods, read about the Trojan War, and explore genealogical charts that trace the various relationships between the pantheon of Rome and Greece. [KMG]

http://findaid.oac.cdlib.org/texts/roho.html

Since its creation in 1954, the Regional Oral History Office at the Bancroft Library has carried out hundreds of interviews in a wide variety of subject areas, including arts and letters, business and labor, University of California history, and the environment. As part of a vast digitization project, a number of these interviews have been placed online for consultation and research purposes. The thematic topics covered here include oral histories of the California wine industry, California government and politics, Earl Warren, Jewish community leaders of the Bay Area, Western mining in the twentieth century, and ten others. The oral histories dealing with the life of Earl Warren are particularly fascinating as they deal with his role in the Japanese-American relocation during World War II, his various political campaigns, and the reflections of labor leaders on the Warren era. [KMG]

http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/

Hosted at Bard College, with a dispersed staff composed of distinguished writers, translators, and publishing professionals, Words Without Borders (WWB) seeks to address the current "dangerous imbalance" in publishing (about 50% of all books in translation worldwide are translated from English, but only about 6% are translated into English). Browse the Web site by issue -- July/August, September, and October 2003 are available -- or select literature geographically. Readers will find both fiction and non-fiction in the form of essays, poems, and excerpts from longer works. There are also book reviews, brief biographical information about authors, and a link to sign up to receive the journal via email. [DS]

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/crrucs/

Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in the intersection between civil society, religion, and political participation. Drawing on the need for additional inquiry in that area, the Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (CRRUCS) was founded at the University of Pennsylvania in 2000. Under the direction of Professor John J. DiIulio Jr. and his colleagues, CRRUCS is "dedicated to producing and disseminating cutting-edge empirical knowledge about the role of religion in contemporary urban America." Their work is concentrated on five major thematic areas, including crime and religion, religion and survey research and civic engagement and spiritual capital. On the site, visitors can read profiles of current staff members and fellows and learn about upcoming events sponsored by CRRUCS. Additionally, a number of research reports are also available, organized thematically by five major areas of research interest. [KMG]

http://www.onlinepoetryclassroom.org/

Poetry is one of the oldest forms of human expression, and can be found in almost every part of the world, manifesting itself to express every type of emotion, whether it be hope, sadness, or exuberance. This persuasive and helpful Web site was developed by the Academy of American Poets in order to provide both professional development for high school English teachers and a virtual teaching community that offers free access to poetry resources, including poems and classroom-tested curricula. The curriculum section includes 17 teaching plans, along with a teacher forum area where colleagues can share ideas about what works (and what doesn't) in terms of teaching poetry. A section titled What to Teach includes lists of poems that are ideal to teach to students, and a number of fine themed online exhibits that address movements such as the Harlem Renaissance, the Modernist poets, and the general development of American poetry in the 20th century. [KMG]

http://digital.nypl.org/dennis/stereoviews/

Immortalized in such musicals as The Music Man and mercilessly skewered in the novels of Sinclair Lewis, small towns in the United States have served as the source of much artistic inspiration. This thoroughly fascinating collection, presented by the New York Public Library (and drawn from the Robert Dennis Collection) contains approximately 12,000 stereoscopic views from the Tri-State region from the 1850s to the 1910s. Along with showing a number of buildings and street scenes, these photographs show industry, transportation, natural disasters, local festivities, and costumes. Visitors may want to begin by browsing through this massive collection by title, name, subject, formats, or places in order to get some sense of the wide variety of material covered in the holdings of this online archive. Some of the subjects include Lake Niagara, Norwich, and Saratoga Springs. Finally, visitors can also complete a simple or detailed search in order to locate specific views. [KMG]

http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/

As interest in creating communities that adhere to sustainable development principles continues to garner substantial interest, the Department of Energy has created this online clearinghouse of relevant information for areas interested in learning more about incorporating these principles into their new (or existing) developments. On the site, visitors can read about communities that have implemented sustainable development plans, locate technical and financial resources designed to assist communities with such plans, and access various codes and ordinances related to subsequent implementation of these development schemes. The Topics in Sustainability is quite helpful, providing a list of related themes (such as land use planning and community energy) that users can click on and view a brief synopsis of each theme, read articles on the theme, and examine the key principle behind each theme. For those who wish to keep abreast of the latest developments in sustainable development, a monthly electronic newsletter is also available at no charge. [KMG]

http://www.cyberdance.org/

Those interested in the terpsichorean pursuits of ballet and modern dance will want to keep a close eye on CyberDance, which has served as a good source of links in this field since 1995. Containing over 3500 links in total, the thematic sections includes colleges that feature dance programs, companies that offer dance-related goods and services, online dance news sites, and sites that profile those important persons in their respective field of ballet or modern dance. Each section is alphabetically organized, and the site is frequently updated. Additionally, the site has a search engine that will assist visitors in honing in on any particular area of interest. Overall, this site is a good way for well-versed dance professionals and up-and-coming amateurs to quickly find any number of online dance resources efficiently.

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Spyware has increasingly been a problem for many persons as they surf the web and find themselves beleaguered by Yes/No boxes and other annoyances. SpyWare Blaster 2.6.1 prevents the installation of any spyware ActiveX controls, and will prevent many of these controls from running, even if they may be already installed on any given system. Another nice feature is the System Snapshot which takes a snapshot of the user's computer in its clean state and allows users to target items used by spyware and browser hijackers to embed themselves into the computer"s system. This version is compatible with all systems running Windows 95 and higher. [KMG]

http://homepage.mac.com/nowhereman77/GenX/

With more and more persons becoming interested in tracing their family history, this handy open-source application will be a welcome addition. Generation X 2.3.2 allows users to create detailed family trees, and is completely customizable, a feature that will allow families to create complete family trees. Also the genealogies can be viewed by person, family, pedigree, and descendants. Generation X 2.3.2 is compatible with systems running Mac OS X 10.2 and higher. [KMG]

Marathon Diver Splashes into Record Books
http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2033014
BBC News: Ness Marathon New World Record [RealOnePlayer]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3176730.stm
Pensioner Finds Nessie Fossil
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3069803.stm
Loch Ness Investigation
http://www.lochnessinvestigation.org/
Urquhart Castle
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/drumnadrochit/urquhart/
Drumnadrochit by Loch Ness
http://www.drumnadrochit.co.uk/

When one thinks of the vast cultural legacy that Scotland has bequeathed to the world, one is often reminded of these important figures: Sir Walter Scott, Adam Smith, Dave Hume, Robert Louis Stevenson, and of course Nessie, the massive prehistoric creature that allegedly inhabits the murky water of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. On October 9, 2003, after a 12-day underwater marathon, Lloyd Scott (a former fireman), completed his 26-mile diving expedition along a stretch of the loch. The trip was designed to raise money for a leukemia charity (and perhaps to catch a glimpse of Nessie as well), and was completed in an old-fashioned diving suit with lead boots. During his solitary trek, Scott only had one precarious moment, which occurred when he slipped off a ledge, and tumbled partway into the vast darkness of the loch before being caught by his safety line. When asked if he had seen any sight of the lochs most famous denizen, Scott reported "I have only seen two fish up to now, which either means there are not many fish in the loch - or something has eaten them all." In an interview with BBC News shortly after emerging from the loch, Scott said he planned on taking a holiday to swim with great white sharks off the coast of South Africa. [KMG]

The first link leads to a news piece from the online edition of the Scotsman newspaper that talks about Mr. Scotts recent underwater trials and tribulations. The second link will take visitors to another news piece on the subject from the BBC, complete with a video clip that features Mr. Scott emerging from the benthic depths of Loch Ness. The third link is to a news story from fall 2002 detailing the discovery of a Jurassic fossil on the banks of Loch Ness that seemed to bear some vague resemblance to Nessie. The fourth link leads to a Web site developed by Dick Raynor, who has been personally investigating Loch Ness phenomena since 1967. The site contains a wide variety of material about the various explorations and studies of the Loch, and is quite interesting. The fifth link leads to a site that profiles Urquhart Castle, a 13th-century military fortification that is located on Loch Ness. The final link will take visitors to a page about the peaceful (sometimes) village of Drumnadrochit, which is annually besieged by thousands of visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of Nessie or, barring that, at least purchasing any one of the bevy of souvenirs to be found in the local shops.