Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 22:02:44 -0700 From: Jim Warren Subject: GovAccess.074: online resources, House WAIS, CTV NII, Meek stuff, 2020 [These are some embarassingly-old notes from my email swamp. --blushing jim] ------------------------------ THE ONLINE WORLD - ONLINE RESOURCES HANDBOOK >From presno@grida.no Sat Jul 16 01:06:24 1994 From: Odd de Presno The Online World resources handbook is out in its seventh release, and can be retrieved by modem from services all over the world. Version 1.6 has new pointers to services that can help you learn and use foreign languages, how to find books in other languages than English, six news digests on Africa, new sources on China, international political and economic news from British Broadcasting Corporation (BBS). There are more: How to get this week's currency exchange rates, The Information Bank on African Development Studies (a World Bank project), Encyclopaedia Britannica, how to access MCI Mail from the Internet. Since the book's last release in May, it has a further strengthened focus on resources in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and Europe. It contains less about online services in North America than you may be accustomed to. . . The more technically inclined will check out the new pointers on satellites, amateur and packet radio, information about an Internet clipping service, about how to find lists of periodic postings (FAQs) to Usenet, on QWK, .tar- files, more on compression, ftp via Gopher, finding the best gophers in the world, GopherMail, IRC, Linux, Lynx, WAIS FAQ, the WebCrawler database of WWW information pages, Internet tools, and more. It sure does not stand still! The Internet is moving so fast that printed books are obsolete the moment they appear in print. Not so with this book. A new version appears every second month. >From his electronic cottage on the southern coast of Norway, author Odd de Presno advises on the practical use of the GLOBAL online information resource. (His house stands in a small bay, about 7 kilometers from Arendal. It is so close to the ocean, that his computers could potentially exchange views with fish and seagulls. :-) The book explores selected applications across continent, country, network and service boundaries to show how user needs can be met. Examples range from databases to entertainment and the bizarre to special services for professionals and organizations. He shares insights on the use of major global networks and services as the Internet, Usenet, BITNET, Fidonet, Echo, CompuServe, DIMDI, NIFTY-Serve, and others. de Presno has more than 20 years of experience with online services, both as a service provider and a heavy user. In his spare time, he runs KIDLINK, a global network for kids 10 - 15 years of age. Since he founded it in 1990, over 23,000 kids in 62 countries have participated in the programs. Through a network of partners, local versions of the book are in the process of being published in several countries. It is already available in Norway and Germany. Partners in Finland, Denmark and Canada are working under contract with local publishers. Partners in Spain and Iceland are onto self-publishing projects. Thus, it will soon be available on print in Danish, English, Finnish, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Spanish. The easy way --- Gopher to cosn.org. Select: Networking Information/Reference/The Online World. The gopher at wuecon.wustl.edu 671 lets you read "The Online Book by Chapter/", and has the choice "SEARCH Online Book ." Select "Online Book" from the main menu. For information about KIDLINK, gopher kids.ccit.duq.edu 70 . Information by email --- Send your requests to LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU (or LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 on BITNET) . Put the following type of command in the TEXT of your mail to retrieve desired documents (the subject line is ignored) : GET Replace and by names from the list below. Archive File What does this file contain? ------ ------- ---------------------------- TOW INDEX The Online World book's contents TOW WHERE How to retrieve The Online World shareware book by modem? TOW OPRESNO Who is Odd de Presno? TOW WHATSNEW The book's update history. TOW MONITOR Information about The Online World Monitor newsletter KIDLINK GENERAL What is KIDLINK? Example: To get the file INDEX, use the command GET TOW INDEX Personal attention --- Write me at opresno@extern.uio.no , or by fax to +47-370-27111 , and I will reply as soon as possible. Odd de Presno (Author, publisher, Norwegian) ------------------------------ HOUSE LEGISLATION ON FREE WAIS SERVER, REP. ZIMMER PRESS RELEASE FROM TAP-From: Michael Ward Distributed to TAP-INFO, a free Internet Distribution List (subscription requests to listproc@essential.org) TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE CROWN JEWELS CAMPAIGN - LEGIS July 30, 1994 As indicated earlier, the House of Representatives House Information Services (HIS) has placed the full text of all house bills on a WAIS server, which is available at no charge. The original annoucement of the service was made by Terry Nugent (using the email address of HIS@HR.HOUSE.GOV). Representative Charlie Rose (D-NC, crose@hr.house.gov) was responsible for the decision. According to Representative Rose's staff, he has received hundreds of email messages asking for access to legislative information and in support of the "free after six" proposal for the GPO Access program. A number of other persons played important roles, including Representative Dick Zimmer (R-NJ, dzimmer@hr.house.gov), who has been increasingly active on public access issues. We have been able to access the bills through gopher servers at idi.net and bell.com. We are informed that the House of Representatives gopher, gopher.house.gov, the Library of Congress gopher (loc.marvel.gov) and APSA gopher (apsa.trenton.edu) can access the bills through the WAIS server, and I'm sure that the data is now available from other sites as well. On July 30, 1994, the Electronic Public Information Newsletter (EPIN) said it was publishing a story that quotes sources from the House Information Service as saying that they wanted to include on the free WAIS service the full text of Senate Bills and the Congressional Record, both of which are now available to members of congress through the house LEGIS service, but that they were prevented from doing so at this time by the Joint Committee on Printing, which oversees the GPO Access program. We have no independent confirmation of this report, which if true, is distrubing. (EPIN is an independent newsletter that covers public access issues from a data user and library point of view. Libraries who want to support this independent investigative publication should purchase subscriptions. EPIN can be contacted at 301/365-3621 or epin@access.digex.com). On a somewhat related front, Senator Wendell Ford, the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing, has reportedly written GPO to indicate that he has no objection to the "free after six" program, and Senator Ford also asked GPO for information requested by TAP on GPO Access subscription information, which Senator Ford indicated would be used in oversight of GPO. The following is a press release sent to tap-info from Representative Dick Zimmer's office. Representative Zimmer has sponsored a resolution that would put a much wider array of legislative information products on the Internet for free, and he is actively working on this and other public access measures. james love (jamie@tap.org) === Zimmer press release === Date: 25 Jul 1994 18:24:18 EST From: T.MITCHELL AT ZIMMER'S PRODDING, HOUSE PUTS PENDING LEGISLATION ON THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY. (JULY 25, 1994----FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE) WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The House of Representatives will make legislation accessible to constituents over the Internet, a month after U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer introduced legislation calling on House leaders to make the service available to the public. The congressional "Text of Legislation service" is now available on-line free of charge, according to House Information Systems, which runs the service. On June 23, Zimmer introduced a resolution to require the House Administration Committee to make all information contained in the congressional Text of Legislation and Legislative Information and Status (LEGIS) services available on the Internet. The Text of Legislation service contains the full text of all bills and resolutions introduced in Congress. LEGIS contains a summary and status of all bills and resolutions introduced in the House and the Senate for the current Congress. "This is a giant step forward in congressional accountability," Zimmer said. "Until now, people who wanted to read a pending bill had to contact their member of Congress or the Government Printing Office, or pay top dollar to a commercial information service. Now anyone with a computer and a modem can log into the Internet and get that information instantly free of charge." In April, Zimmer wrote a letter to Rep. Charlie Rose, chairman of the House Administration Committee, urging that all proposed legislation be placed on the Internet. Rose told Zimmer the committee was studying the issue. Zimmer said today he will ask Rose again to put LEGIS information on the Internet as well. The Internet links computers all over the world, supporting the exchange of information over high-speed data lines. Currently the Internet has more than 8,000 networks which more than one million persons use each day to send and receive electronic mail. In May, Zimmer linked his Washington, D.C. office to the Internet. His e-mail address for constituents is dzimmer@hr.house.gov. from more information, contact Todd Mitchel from Representative Zimmer's office, at tmitchel@hr.house.gov === TAP-INFO is an Internet Distribution List provided by the Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP). TAP was founded by Ralph Nader to monitor the management of government property, including information systems and data, government funded R&D, spectrum allocation and other government assets. TAP-INFO reports on TAP activities relating to federal information policy. tap-info is archived at ftp.cpsr.org; gopher.cpsr.org and wais.cpsr.org Subscription requests to tap-info to listproc@essential.org with the message: subscribe tap-info your name === Taxpayer Assets Project; P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 v. 202/387-8030; f. 202/234-5176; internet: tap@essential.org ------------------------------ CABLE TELEVISION INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE DISCUSSION LIST >From owner-new-list@VM1.NODAK.EDU Fri Jul 15 13:05:27 1994 From: NIIbyCTV%MIAVX1.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU Organization: John B Harlan & Miami University (Ohio USA) NIIbyCTV on LISTSERV@MIAMIU.BITNET - Accessing the NII by Cable TV or LISTSERV@MIAMIU.MUOHIO.EDU NIIbyCTV is an open, unmoderated discussion list regarding fair and equitable access to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) via Cable Television (CTV). Archives of NIIbyCTV list traffic are kept in monthly files. You may obtain a list of files in the archives by sending the command INDEX NIIbyCTV in the BODY of e-mail to LISTSERV@MIAMIU on BITNET or to LISTSERV@MIAMIU.MUOHIO.EDU on the Internet. To subscribe, send the following command in the BODY of mail to LISTSERV@MIAMIU on BITNET or LISTSERV@MIAMIU.MUOHIO.EDU on the Internet: SUB NIIbyCTV yourfirstname yourlastname For example: SUB NIIbyCTV John Q Public Owner: NIIbyCTV List Coordinator John B Harlan ------------------------------ BROCK MEEKS' CYBERWIRE DISPATCH LIST - (BROCK WRITES *HOT* STUFF! --jim) >From owner-new-list@VM1.NODAK.EDU Fri Jul 15 12:22:20 1994 From: "Eric S. Theise" CyberWire Dispatch, officially launched in January of this year, has rapidly gained recognition as a hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners news service that concentrates on issues relevant to Cyberspace. Dispatch is written by Brock N. Meeks as a free service for the Net. It offers commentary, investigations and hard news relevant to issues of the day. Meeks brings to Dispatch his skills as a daily reporter with more than 10 of experience on the Internet. He uses the same journalistic guidelines and ethics that have brought him journalism awards in 7 of the last 10 years, including a National Press Club journalism prize awarded him in July 1994. Dispatch now has its own mailing list. It's ONE WAY, receive ONLY. When you subscribe, you get only the news. No noise. No cross-talk, no chatter. You can send feedback directly to Brock for comments or questions. To subscribe to cwd-l, send the following command to majordomo@cyberwerks.com in the BODY of e-mail: subscribe cwd-l Owner: Eric S. Theise Back issues of CyberWire Dispatch and information about the Brock Meeks Defense Fund are available via gopher at cyberwerks.com and via the World-Wide Web at http://cyberwerks.com:70/1/cyberwire ------------------------------ EXPLORING LIFE IN 2020 - A DISCUSSION GROUP >From owner-new-list@VM1.NODAK.EDU Thu Sep 22 11:33:47 1994 From: Laura Ashworth Subject: NEW: 2020WORLD - Exploration of Life in the Year 2020 2020WORLD on MAJORDOMO@SEATIMES.COM 2020WORLD will be a global group exploration of life in the year 2020. 2020world is a weekly column that is published in the Sunday Seattle Times Personal Technology section. Kurt Dahl, VP of Information Technology at The Seattle Times is the author of this column. The column will be posted to this mailing list every Monday in hopes of encouraging outrageous, yet intellectual, ideas that are far outside the typical, boring discussions of home-shopping and video-on-demand. 2020world will explore how our lives will change when the information highway is a familiar and integral part of our society. The column will *NOT* be about technology, that's why the year 2020 was chosen, by then we can all agree that a broadband, fully switched, ubiquitous network will have been in place for many years. How that network will change our lives, not how it will work, is the question 2020world will address. Here is where you come in, and this is the most important part. With each column, an idea will be put into play, a toss of the first jump ball. Then we want to inspire readers to comment, explore, and extend that idea with their responses. The best will be published in the paper. Your responses and ideas are needed and welcomed, hence this invitation for you to join the mailing list. 1. To subscribe to the 2020world list send an e-mail message to: MAJORDOMO@SEATIMES.COM Leave the subject line blank and use the following message: SUBSCRIBE 2020WORLD 2. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail message as in Step 1, but leave the message: UNSUBSCRIBE 2020WORLD 3. 2020world is an unmoderated list. All mail sent to this list will be sent to all other subscribers. Send all mail that you want posted to: 2020WORLD@SEATIMES.COM Please join in and help us understand the real nature of our world after the information highway is built. Send your subscription e-mail right now! We're looking forward to adding your thoughts to our discussion. Owner: Laura Ashworth -- year2020@seatimes.com Ass't to Kurt Dahl, author of column The Seattle Times P.O. Box 70 Seattle, WA 98111 (206) 464-3339 (voice mail) (206) 382-8898 (FAX) ------------------------------ "I don't pay attention to politics." "You should, my dear. It's barely less important than your own heartbeat." "I don't pay attention to that either." -- Robert Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land" Mo' as it Is. --jim GovAccess is an email distribution-list of irregular postings, maintained by Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc. 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/<# upon request> jwarren@well.com -or- jwarren@autodesk.com >> Permission herewith granted for unlimited reposting and recirculation.<< >> Past postings are at ftp.cpsr.org:/cpsr/states/california/govaccess << >> To add or drop the GovAccess list, email to jwarren@well.com . <<