The Scout Report - February 16, 1996

February 16, 1996

A Publication of Internet Scout
Provided by the InterNIC as a Service to the Internet Community

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) or visit the Web version of the Scout Report. Subscription instructions are included at the end of each report.
http://rs.internic.net/scout/report

Send comments and contributions to: scout@cs.wisc.edu

In honor of Black History Month, we visited a small collection of submitted sites and selected 5 for inclusion this week.* Look for more in next week's Scout Report.

White House Summer Internship Program -- Internet Services
The Office of Science and Technology Policy of the Executive Office of the President has openings for qualified volunteers and unpaid summer interns to help improve the White House Web site. Regretfully, it is not anticipated that there will be any paid positions for the summer. Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in politics and government, strong writing abilities, and at least some experience with HTML. The strongest applicants would also have a UNIX background and some experience with Perl and CGI scripting. Especially desirable would be candidates who are fluent in Spanish or VRML. While they will work primarily on the Web site, volunteers and interns may also be called upon to do general office duties. Positions are available for Summer and Fall. Application is made by sending email with (only) the URL of your Web site in the subject line. All applications must be received by 1 March 1996 to be considered for this summer. Applications will be considered from all qualified persons without discrimination. This has been a very high profile and rewarding internship for those who have participated in the past two years. Be creative with your application page and have fun. Further details concerning these positions can be seen in the full announcement posted at the site of this week's Scout Report:
http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/current/interns
[Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
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1996 Economic Report of the President
The complete text of the 1996 Economic Report of the President, authored by the Council of Economic Advisors, is available from the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) Web site. The online Report can be searched but not browsed. To see large portions of the report at once, search on "chapter" (without the quotes). This will return each chapter plus a detailed table of contents. Use the detailed table of contents to search for specific items, but be aware that the engine returns the entire chapter(s) that contain your query words. Queries will also return specific appendix tables that match the query. To receive multiple tables, use the query "table b*" (with the quotes). Tables and text are available in ASCII and PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format. Acrobat formatted chapters include the graphics that are in the hardcopy version. Adobe Acrobat is available from the Adobe site or from the Scout Toolkit. (Note! GPO service will be temporarily down all day Saturday, February 17, 1996).
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/eop/
Full text of 1992-1995 Economic Reports of the President are available from the University of Missouri-St. Louis:
1992-1994:gopher://gopher.umsl.edu:70/11/library/govdocs/erps
Gopher to gopher.umsl.edu
select: The Library/Government Information/Economic Reports of the President
1995: http://www.umsl.edu/~libweb/erp/1995/
Adobe Acrobat:http://www.adobe.com/Acrobat/readstep.html
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*Chicago's Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable High School
Chicago's Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable High School is an ongoing exploration of how integration of the Internet into day-to-day school activities can affect education in an inner-city school. It is a training site for the entire Chicago Public School system and is one of 14 demonstration sites chosen by the State of Illinois for implementation of technology into education. The proposal for technology implementation that Du Sable submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education is available on the site, and may be of assistance to other inner-city schools writing similar proposals. The site also contains an excellent pointers page for resources on the Internet, and resources to help "get your school on the net."
http://www.dusable.cps.k12.il.us/
[Note: When last checked by the Internet Scout team, this site URL was no longer available.]
Du Sable's technology implementation proposal: http://www.dusable.cps.k12.il.us/narr_ToC.html
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*The Black Graduate Engineering and Science Students
A highlight of The Black Graduate Engineering and Science Students of the University of California-Berkeley (BGESS) Web page is its Future Black Faculty (FBF) database, which is browsable and searchable and contains records of doctoral candidates, recent graduates, and professionals seeking a position in academia. All database members are of African descent and "plan to obtain a tenure track faculty position within 5 - 7 years." The database concentrates on engineering, computer sciences, and the natural sciences. BGESS offers a page of "Afrocentric Web Links", as well as information about itself and its members. Available in both graphical and text versions.
http://bgess.berkeley.edu/
Text only:http://bgess.berkeley.edu/text.shtml
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Bucknell University Russian Studies
The Bucknell University Russian Studies Program provides a richly graphic site linking to all things Russian. A pointer to University of Indiana's Russian 1996 presidential election page is provided, which includes information on all the major candidates. The Russian Study Materials section offers 21 links to a wide variety of topics, such as the daily Voice of Russia in RealAudio format, art and architecture, business and economics, Chechnya news and background, cinema, the 1993 Russian and 1977 Soviet Constitutions, history, language, law, music, and Russian humor, among others. The entire site is indexed alphabetically for ease of use, and pointers to other Russian sites are available.
http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/index.html
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Special Education Resources on the Internet
Special Education Resources on the Internet (SERI), provided by Hood College, contains a large list of pointers to Internet information on special education of all kinds. Included are general disabilities information, university based information, disability products, national organizations, legal resources, hearing impairment, mental retardation, behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, vision impairment, Attention Deficit Disorder, Autism, and gifted and talented. A good place to start for information on this topic.
http://www.hood.edu/seri/serihome.htm
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Campus Voice: The College Site
Campus Voice, an editorial poster seen on 354 campuses nationwide, has covered trends and news relevant to the college community for 14 years. Now on the Web, Campus Voice: The College Site showcases college media from the USA and around the world, including news, points of view, interviews and critical reviews. Because Campus Voice: The College Site is for students and about them, students write, report, research, moderate, and design the site. Campus Voice: The College Site emphasizes good reporting and writing, featuring interviews pertaining to topics like money, internships, travel, jobs (both part-time and real), health, sex, cheap eats, relationships, big ideas, sports, technology, entertainment, toys, and gadgets.
http://www.campusvoice.com/
[Note: When last checked by the Internet Scout team, this site URL was no longer available.]
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*Universal Black Pages
The Universal Black Pages, created and developed through the efforts of members of the Black Graduate Students Association at Georgia Tech University, is a comprehensive page of pointers to subjects related to "the African Diaspora." Included are sections on upcoming events, African American as well as other African Diaspora businesses, Black school and student organizations in Africa and the Americas, Diaspora country pages from the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda to Zimbabwe, the arts, entertainment, music, professional organizations, and engineering, science, and technology, among others. The hundreds of pointers make this site one of the most comprehensive listings of African American and international Black productions and resources.
http://www.ubp.com/
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*Quarterly Black Review of Books
The Quarterly Black Review of Books is a site that reviews the latest in Black fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children's books. It also includes a feature section, which presently contains an interview with Terry McMillan, author of "Waiting to Exhale," as well as a guide to Black classics by author, a listing of works of great Black writers that include W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker, among others.
http://www.bookwire.com/qbr/qbr.html
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*Mississippi State University African American History Archive
The Mississippi State University African American History Archive is a great place to start for pointers to African American history sites, as well as an excellent repository of African American history primary documents. The sites include Adonis Productions' Black Pioneers page (with pages on African American pioneers in all fields), Great Day In Harlem (jazz), Mississippi State's AfriGeneas genealogy mailing list and Web site, Small Towns-Black Lives in New Jersey, African American pioneers in Kentucky law, and the International Museum of the Horse's Buffalo Soldier pages. Full text documents include Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Booker T. Washington's "Up From Slavery", Frederick Douglass' "Autobiography" and "My Escape from Slavery", and Henry David Thoreau's "A Plea for Captain John Brown" and "Slavery in Massachussetts", among others. The site also contains African American bibliographies in the arts, education, history, and science, as well as pointers to other African American sites.
http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/History/USA/Afro-Amer/afro.html
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OSU Medical Center Gopher
The Columbus Ohio Freenet gopher offers a link to the Ohio State University Medical Center gopher. From there you can choose Health Promotion and Disease Prevention to access basic information on 16 health topics, including Back Safety, Diabetes, Home Health Tips, Men's Health Issues, Nutrition and Diet, Well Baby Care, and Women's Health Issues. The information is provided to help you better understand the health issues that are facing you today, and to enhance your ongoing dialogue with your personal physician related to your specific health concerns.
gopher://gizmo.freenet.columbus.oh.us:70/11/healthservices/OSU%20Medical%20Cente r/Health%20Promotion%20and%20Disease%20Prevention%20Information
Gopher to: gizmo.freenet.columbus.oh.us
Select: Health Services/OSU Medical Center/Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Information
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Brown & Williamson Archive
The Digital Library of the University of California--San Francisco has made scanned images of their Brown and Williamson Tobacco Archive available on the Web. The documents consist primarily of scientific studies on the addictive nature of nicotine and other health effects of tobacco smoke. The materials have been the subject of a suit in San Francisco Superior Court in which Brown & Williamson sought to permanently remove the disputed material from the Library. On May 25th, 1995 the Superior Court ruled that these documents should be made available for public review. (Subsequent appeals to the Court of Appeals and the California Supreme Court were rejected.) The collection includes documents from 1957-1991 inclusive. It can be searched or browsed, and an archival history and description are available. The collection is also available on CD-ROM for a fee. Order forms are available at the site.
http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/bw.html
Collection history and description:
http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/bwhist.html
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Chess Match: Kasparov vs. Deep Blue
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is currently sponsoring the ACM Chess Challenge, pitting world champion Gary Kasparov against Deep Blue, the IBM chess playing machine. The entire match, including every play of every game and commentary from chess masters and Kasparov himself, is available at the Web site. Kasparov is matched against "a 32-node IBM PowerParallel SP2 high-performance computer..., a scalable, highly parallel system capable of calculating 50 to 100 billion moves within 3 minutes, which is the time allotted to each player's move in classical chess." As of Thursday, February 15, the score is Kasparov 1, Deep Blue 1, and two draws. The final games are Friday (3 p.m. US EST) and Saturday, when you can watch the moves live on the 'net. After a game is over, it can still be observed move by move by clicking on the list of moves under the chess board graphic. As stated on the front page, "This match is not about competition between people and machines. It is a demonstration of what makes us human beings so different from computers." NOTE: The pages give no indication of how long after the last game the site will remain online.
http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/home/html/b.html/meet/html/d.1.2.e.html
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Castles on the Web
If you like castles, visit Castles on the Web for a nice collection of photos, history, and Q & A on castles around the world. Ask a question about a particular castle, browse a list of castle books, or see the list of castle events. An individual effort done with an obvious love of the topic.
http://fox.nstn.ca/~tmonk/castle/castle.html/
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Oscars Nominees on the Net
Yes, the Academy Award nominations were announced this week, and Yes, the Web site was overwhelmed starting in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday. For all the hoopla, see:
http://www.oscars.org/
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PointCast
The PointCast Network (PCN) software allows you to read a personally customized, continually updated newspaper from your desktop. The program installs as a screen saver and is activated automatically when your workstation is idle. It automatically updates stories in the categories of national, international, political, company, industry, sports, weather, and features. The sections on industry, company, sports, weather, and features can be customized so that only stories of interest to you are tracked. In company news, 20 minute delayed stock quotes scroll across the bottom of the screen. In sports news, sports scores scroll across the bottom of the screen. At present the service is supported by advertising that also moves on screen. Stories are provided by such sources as Reuters, PR Newswire, and Sports Ticker. PCN also has a web browser built into it. The beta software is available only on Windows platforms at this time.
http://www.pointcast.com/
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WebWhacker
ForeFront Group's WebWhacker is a tool designed to reduce the user's dependency on an Internet connection while delving deeply into a single Web site. This specialized software can be set to download single Webpages, groups of pages, or entire Web sites, depending on the user-controlled configuration options. The downloads, called "whacks", include both text (HTML) and images, and are stored on the local desktop. The downloaded pages are re-linked locally for browsing on the desktop with any Web browser. The desktop version of the site is a mirror image of the information on the original Web site. WebWhacker is a great tool for Internet demonstrations from sites with slow or unstable Internet connections. WebWhacker is a commercial product, but free 30 day trial copies are available for downloading for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and Macintosh platforms.
http://www.bluesquirrel.com/products/whacker/whacker.html
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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1996. 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 - February 16, 1996

February 16, 1996

Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools

Scout Report and Scout Report HTML Subscription Instructions