The Scout Report - January 24, 1997

January 24, 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.

The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie [QuickTimeVR, Frames, RealAudio]
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/carnegie/
Andrew Carnegie, avaricious gilded age capitalist (strikebreaker at Homestead), prolific philanthropist (donator of nearly 3,000 libraries in 33 years), or a combination of both? You can decide at the PBS (Public Broadcasting System) companion site to its recent American Experience biography of this multi-faceted, complex personality. The site contains a full transcript of the show, a detailed, frames-based timeline covering every year of his life, information about some of the largest mansions of the time, along with a virtual tour of a steel mill, and supplementary information on Carnegie's philanthropy. [JS]
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Handbook of Latin American Studies Online
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/hlas/
Current Journal Abbreviations:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/hlas/journals.html
Subject Terms (from Volume 50 onward):
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/hlas/subjects.html
The U.S. Library of Congress Hispanic Division has recently made all volumes from 1935 onward of its Handbook of Latin American Studies available for searching on the web. "The multidisciplinary Handbook alternates annually between the social sciences and the humanities. Each year, more than 130 academics from around the world choose over 5,000 works for inclusion in the Handbook." Users can search by subject, author, or title in basic search mode, and there is also a more powerful expert searching mode available. Retrieval includes complete bibliographic information, and subject listings are linked to other citations related to that subject. This is an exhaustive, authoritative source of Latin American Studies information. [JS]
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Healthweb
http://healthweb.org/
Healthweb is an ongoing project of CIC (Committee for Institutional Cooperation) schools (Big 10 schools plus University of Chicago), to "develop an interface which will provide organized access to evaluated non-commercial, health related, Internet-accessible resources." At present, over 70 subjects are in the main directory, and over 40 of these provide links to sites covering health issues from AIDS to Medical Informatics to Women's Health. This is a distributed collection in that each subject is handled by a particular CIC university. Access is by subject or by university, and what makes the site powerful is its selectivity, which distinguishes it as one of the better starting points for health and medicine related Internet sites. Unfortunately, there is no overall search capability at this time. [JS]
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Two Agricultural Market Resources
Market Information Sources Available Through the Internet: Daily To Yearly Market and Outlook Reports, Prices, and Commodities and Quotes
http://www.aec.msu.edu/agecon/fs2/market/contents.htm
Current World Market and Trade Publications--USDA FAS
http://ffas.usda.gov/currwmt.html
Two resources have recently been made available that increase access to agricultural market information. Market Information Sources Available Through the Internet, by Jean-Charles Le Valee of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University, is a handy compendium of Internet-accessible marketing information. It contains selected annotated pointers to market reports and prices, exchanges and quotes, weather and farm journals, email discussion lists, and selected other agricultural information. The strength of the site is that it points to data of many different time periods (daily to annual), geographic locations (US and international), and commodities. The USDA FAS (US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service) Current World Market and Trade Circulars "provide the latest analysis and data on a number of agricultural commodities, outlining the current supply, demand and trade estimates both for the United States and for many major foreign countries." Many of these reports are issued monthly, and all are arranged by commodity. Note that the reports may be missing some statistical tables and charts present in the print editions. [JS]
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New Ideas in Pollution Regulation--Pollution abatement in developing countries [.zip]
http://www.worldbank.org/nipr/index.htm
New Ideas in Pollution Regulation, provided by Prosody Communications in cooperation with the World Bank's Economics of Industrial Pollution Control research group, "is targeted at people and organizations interested in public policy issues relating to the cost-effective control of pollution," in developing countries. The site is highlighted by a collection of WBEIPC working papers, 11 at present, which focus mainly on pollution abatement issues. Accompanying these papers is a dataset (zipped ASCII and Lotus .wk1 data) "for modelling industry pollution performance." As the site develops, more papers and data are expected to be added, as well as a discussion list to facilitate communication and collaboration among interested researchers. Note that while the WBEIPC is involved in the NIPR project, this site does not represent World Bank policy. [JS]
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Liftoff to Space Exploration [Java]
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/
Liftoff to Space Exploration is a creation of the Mission Operations Laboratory at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This site contains current news and events related to space exploration, as well as information on past, current, and future missions, and astronaut training, life in space, and trivia. This site contains a Kid's Space section, which addresses subjects such as weight on the moon and the Space Cadet Academy. There are also quizzes, games, and photos. The Academy section explores space science, the space shuttle, earth science, the Spacelab, Mir and the Russian Space Agency, etc. This site is geared toward students and space enthusiasts interested in further learning or keeping up with current news. [TB]
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Discovery--Discovery process in product development discussion list
Discovery is an unmoderated mailing list for discussing the discovery process in product development. "Discovery" refers to the ways in which product developers try to understand users and their culture--through focus groups, contextual research, ethnography, etc.--and how to create products that will be meaningful to those people. This list will focus on methodologies, issues, stories and so on related to product definition--"the fuzzy front end." [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
listserv@lst.linkline.com
In the body of the message type:
subscribe discovery Firstname Lastname
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American Film Institute--The Rink [VDO]
http://www.afionline.org/home.html
In a dazzling demonstration that technological history can repeat itself, the American Film Institute has begun to make full length films available at its web site. The first showing is Charles Chaplin's The Rink, made in 1916. VDO live video and audio streaming technology (discussed in the April 12, 1996 Scout Report) is used to play the movie. It is viewed most clearly in a small window of your monitor, and performance is affected by such variables as network congestion and the speed of your connection. But it is a movie, just as early kinetoscope offerings were also "movies." Perhaps in three or four years this technology will mature, and we will really be able to watch movies over the net. Still, what AFI is doing is historic and a valuable experiment that should be recognized as such. The site also contains background information on Chaplin, as well as selected links to other Chaplin sites. [JS]
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The Revolutionaries: On Turning Inspiration into Innovation in Silicon Valley [RealAudio, Java, QuickTimeVR, Frames]
http://www.thetech.org/revolutionaries/
http://www1.sjmercury.com/revolutionaries/
The Tech Museum of Innovation and The San Jose Mercury News is making multimedia interviews with "Silicon Valley's top technology and science pioneers" available at each web site. Interviewees include Nolan Bushnell (Atari), Bill Hewlett (HP), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Bob Metcalf (networking), John Warnock (Adobe), Carl Djerassi (inventor), and Paul Saffo (futurist), among others. A new interview will be available every week until April, and is conducted by a SJMN reporter and a local student. Interviews are available as text, and the frames-based Tech site is spiced up with RealAudio versions and Java based puzzles, while the Mercury site contains QuicktimeVR "Seats of Influence," virtual tours of the offices of the interviewees. [JS]
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The Beige Book--Federal Reserve System
http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/
The U.S. Federal Reserve Board issues this report eight times per year. It "gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions in [each of 11 geographical districts] through reports from [Federal Reserve] Bank and Branch directors and interviews with key businessmen, economists, market experts, and other sources." This information is summarized by district and sector. The Beige Book is watched closely by economic analysts, businesspeople, and journalists, and is considered a barometer of US economic performance. The site contains the current and most recent previous report. [JS]
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The PRIVACY Forum
http://www.vortex.com/privacy.html
gopher://gopher.vortex.com:70/11/privacy
gopher to: gopher.vortex.com
select PRIVACY Forum
ftp://ftp.vortex.com/privacy
ftp to: ftp.vortex.com
change directory to: privacy
Begun in early 1993, the PRIVACY Forum is a moderated digest of "the discussion and analysis of issues relating to the general topic of privacy (both personal and collective) in the 'information age'." It is sponsored by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), internetMCI and Cisco Systems, but they do not influence its content. The digest mailing itself is a once- or twice-weekly publication, and submissions are generally, though not always, signed by the author. The archive includes all of the Privacy Forum's digests as well as various reports, legislative acts, fact sheets and other materials that are topically related, including the Telecommunications Act of 1996, O.J. Simpson Trial Jury Questionnaires (over 75 pages in hard copy!) and a sheet entitled "My Social Security Number: How Secure Is It?" The archive is keyword searchable but results contain no descriptive information--only the volume and number of the issue. [ATW]

To subscribe send email to:
privacy-request@vortex.com
In the body of the message type:
subscribe privacy your full name
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253, or Tube Theatre--A novel for the Internet
http://www.ryman-novel.com/
Geoff Ryman, a science fiction writer, offers this experimental fiction to web surfers looking for something with a little literary elan. Working from the fact that a seven-car train on the Bakerloo line of London's Underground will seat 252 passengers and one driver, Ryman has written a character study of each person on a fictional train. The twist is that each section of the text is precisely 253 words long. There are links between the characters' stories, so that the reader develops a sense of the relationships between these strangers on a train. For those who desire an actual plot, there's an optional train wreck at the end. Cars 1 through 4 are on the track now, and 5 through 7 are promised soon. [ML]
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KOM (King of the Mountains) Paved Road Cycling Discussion List
http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~wlculp/king.html
The primary purpose of the KOM (King of the Mountains) list is to provide a forum for cyclists to share information, ask questions, and network with other cyclists interested in paved road cycling climbs. The KOM List also functions as a mailing list with announcements about updates and additions to the KOM Web Site and news about races and events with paved road climbs throughout the world. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
listserv@utkvm1.utk.edu
In the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE KOM
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ListSTAR--Mailing List and Email-on-Demand Software
http://www.starnine.com/liststar/liststar.html
Setting up an email listserver or an email-on-demand system on the Macintosh is easy with ListSTAR from StarNine Technologies. The ListSTAR software can manage both email lists and email-on-demand services, and can be extended and integrated with other programs using AppleScript. There are POP and SMTP versions of ListSTAR; the POP version requires a separate mail server, while the SMTP version requires a consistent Internet connection and receives mail directly. A fully functional 30-day trial is available; upon payment, the user enters a serial number and the software remains installed and running. StarNine offers substantial educational discounts--prices are available from their Web site. ListSTAR is a relatively inexpensive and easy to use program for managing email lists and email-on-demand systems. [PJD]
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2000 Windows Tips and Tricks [Frames]
http://www.techweb.com/tools/wintips/wintips.html
Windows Magazine, part of the CMP, Inc. conglomerate of computer related magazines, offers a browsable and searchable array of Windows tips on topics from installation and de-installation to memory management to various software products and networking. The tips, which are arranged in a long list down the left side of the page, are concise and helpful, and are a good place for those who want aid with this operating system to start. They are not meant to replace your technical support person or department, however. [JS]
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SYSTRANET Online Translation
http://www.systranet.com/english/trans.html
SYSTRAN Software, Inc. has made available an experimental (alpha-release) web page translation service that will translate non-framed pages of 10K or less for any URL you submit (be sure to understand what "fully qualified URL" means before you begin), from its original langauge to another for selected languages. At present, 6 languages (French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian) are available, though the language translated from or to is always English. Translation times can take from 30 seconds to 3 minutes or longer, and translations (as might be expected) are at times somewhat wooden. This is an experiment that could foreshadow the hoped-for ideal translation services of the future. Note that Netscape and Internet Explorer are the only browsers that are fully supported. [JS]
[Note: This site is no longer available for free; subscription fee(s) required. Site title has also changed since the original Scout Report review. Site formerly referred to in the Scout Report as "Web Translation Page."]
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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 is published weekly by Internet Scout

Susan Calcari
Jack Solock
Matt Livesey
Pete DeVries
Amy Tracy Wells
Aimee Glassel
Teri Boomsma
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The Scout Report - January 24, 1997

January 24, 1997

Research and Education

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