human-nets@ucbvax.ARPA (02/09/85)
From: Charles McGrew (The Moderator) <Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers>
HUMAN-NETS Digest Friday, 8 Feb 1985 Volume 8 : Issue 4
Today's Topics:
Queries - European Net Digests &
Soliciting personal stories on using networks &
Network Address?,
Response to Query - Magnetic media storage
Computers and People - Computer Aided Local Politics (2 msgs)
Information - Online technical Reports &
MIT Communications Forum update
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 1985 18:05 EST
From: David Millman <CU.DSM%CU20B@COLUMBIA.ARPA>
Reply-to: CC.DSM @ Columbia-20.ARPA
Subject: European Net Digests
Does anyone know if other than U.S. based networks have analogous
distributed digests (like this one)? Specifically, I'm wondering
if non-English-speaking European countries have "communities"
like the arpa mailing lists and uucp's netnews. I suppose
organizations like the PTT might have more restrictions on data
transmitted than arpa does.
How would I get in touch with any node from arpa or uucp?
Forget the Japanese; some kind of mappable character set is preferred.
-- David Millman
Columbia U. Computer Center
------------------------------
From: Eugene Miya <eugene@AMES-NAS.ARPA>
Date: 31 Jan 1985 1124-PST (Thursday)
Subject: Soliciting short interesting personal stories on using
Subject: networks
Two weeks, I was invited to be a delegate on a technology exchange to
mainland China. The subject of this exchange is office automation
technology [not my immediate field of research, but a side interest].
I feel like the character Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third
Kind being 'picked.' I now have three months to prepare for this
exchange and this is where I wish to involve human-nets.
It turns out that the person leading the delegation has not had many
positive experiences using electronic communication: mail, networks,
bulletin boards [he does not have ARPAnet or Usenet access]. I was
fortunate, several times, to be exposed to the early ARPAnet, early
DECnet, and Xerox Altos on Ethernet. An idea occurred to me based
upon John Quarterman's paper on Notable Computer Networks. In that
paper, John solicited mail on networks which composed his paper. I
would like to do something similar for our Chinese friends.
I would like to collect any good short (1-2 paragraph) stories you
might have on positive (or negative, I guess) experiences on computer
networks and bulletin boards. Things like 'Yes, electronic mail frees
me from the phone.' are not enough. If you 'met your spouse' via the
network, (a little unusual) these are the kinds of things I would like
to include. I would prefer not to edit letters (including mail
headers). I might select as many as five or six letter for inclusion
into my presentation. I realize there are thousands who read this
board, and I can't take all, but credit will obviously be given when
used. Remember, this is an office automation exchange, not a computer
networking discussion, my audience will include chemists,
sociologists, and lots of non computer people.
I also plan to personally contact certain notable network individuals
for some of their ideas and experiences to take to China.
Also, if you have any special advise about going to China, I would not
mind hearing this. I have been told carry a strong cough syrup, a bit
of TP, a set of photos of where I am from (work and home) is a nice
gesture.
Now, a filter. Do not mail to my normal return address. I don't wish
to swamp those machines. Please send your commentary to:
eugene@riacs.ARPA
Thank you.
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 85 11:33 CST
From: Boebert@HI-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: A.K. Dewdney on the net?
Does anyone know if there is a net address for Alexander K. Dewdney,
author of "Planiverse?" He is a CS Professor at the U of Western
Ontario.
-- Earl (Boebert -at HI-Multics)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 85 14:32:11 EST
From: carpenter@NBS-VMS
Subject: Magnetic media storage
To: norm@rand-unix
In response to the questions about storage of floppy disks,
I recommend that you get a copy of the following NBS
publication.
Care and Handling of Computer Magnetic Storage Media
by Sidney B. Geller
NBS Special Publication 500-101
This is available from the Govt Printing Office, and I
suspect that a phone call to Sid at 301-921-3723 might work
wonders.
The basic answer is that magnets of any reasonable strength
have to be VERY close to the disk to do any harm.
I hope this is some help.
Bob Carpenter
------------------------------
Date: Tue 29 Jan 85 12:38:39-PST
From: Ted Shapin <BEC.SHAPIN@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: Computer Aided Local Politics
To: Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA
The Whole Earth Review for Mar 85, page 89 has an interesting
account of the SYSOP of a Colorado Springs BBS who used that
medium to organize community action on a proposed ordinance
regulating working out of the home. After it was widely
discussed and revised using his BB, it was adopted by the city.
------------------------------
Date: 1 Feb 85 10:50:36 PST (Friday)
From: Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Computer Aided Local Politics [LONG MESSAGE]
To: DBOOTH@USC-ISIF.ARPA, BEC.SHAPIN@USC-ECL.ARPA
From 'Whole Earth Review', March 1985, page 89:
[Copyright (c)1985 by POINT, a California nonprofit corporation
All rights reserved. Reprinted WITH permission.
Subscriptions: $18/year (6 issues)
Whole Earth Review, P.O. Box 27956, San Diego, CA 92128]
THE NEIGHBORHOOD ROM: COMPUTER-AIDED LOCAL POLITICS
By Dave Hughes
[You can contact visionary Dave Hughes, a retired West Point teacher,
using his pioneer computer network bulletin board (303/623-2391), if
you can log on -- it's busy 20 hours a day. I used a plain-vanilla
telephone interview: Hughes speaking all the way. -- Kevin Kelly]
About two years ago the city planners of Colorado Springs decided that
they were going to tighten the city ordinance that regulates working
out of your home. I saw in the newspaper a small legal announcement
that this was coming up before the planning commission , so I went
down on behalf of the whole community of 12,000 people and 200 small
businesses living around old Colorado City. It was clear that if the
city enforced the ordinance rigorously it would make home-based
entrepreneurial activities suffer. I was the only person in that city
of 300,000 who actually stood up and testified against that ordinance.
They could have just ignored me and rolled over me with a tank. But I
did not argue backyard repair of cars; I argued high tech. As a
consequence the planning commission tabled the matter for 30 days.
I brought the text of the three-page ordinance with me and typed it
into my computer bulletin board. I drew attention to it with a notice
on the menu. I had already built up a little reputation among those
who dial my bulletin board as a serious place for discussing public
and political problems, so I put it up on the board saying I didn't
like the actual text of the law.
I began to collect on the bulleting board other implications of the
law that I had never thought of. For instance, though I don't have
anything to do with direct sales, somebody pointed out that the text
would have prohibited Amway products, Shaklee products, and all those
kinds of businesses, which are a very great growth part of our
economy.
Well, if you have the time and bucks, you can buy an ad and form a big
organization, hold a press conference and mobilize public opinion.
What I did was, I sent a letter to the editor of the two local
newspapers and simply said that I didn't like the ordinance and
anybody that has a computer or terminal can dial 623-2391 and read the
ordinance for himself. I got a response of over 250 callers into the
board in the next 10 days, over and above the normal number of
callers.
What I didn't anticipate was that some of the callers were high-tech
people who worked in larger plants -- specifically Digital, Rolm
Corporation, and Walter Drake (a mail order house here). They not
only read the ordinance individually but flipped it on the printer,
printed it, xeroxed it, circulated it through the plant and the next
thing I knew thousands of copies of this ordinance were being
circulated throughout the city although I never went to any meetings
and never xeroxed nothin'. Some of them went to the press and to the
council and started taking their own individual action and I never had
to. The next thing I knew, the TV and everybody else got in on it.
They also began to put the heat on the city planners.
In the end the city council never knew what hit them. At the next
meeting 175 people showed up. I didn't represent anybody but myself.
People came in and wondered angrily why the mayor was letting the
planning commission prevent people from making income from out of
their homes. There was at least one person who captured the text on
his computer, rewrote the thing and uploaded it again -- revised it.
Well, that's a piece of cake with a word processor program. Normally
nobody puts out that kind of energy no matter how concerned bcause the
effort to get involved with local politics, the effort to do your
civic duty, the effort to mobilize public opinion takes a great deal
of energy. But suddenly the economy of effort that computers gives
makes it possible for people to electronically mobilize opinion. We
eventually only came together in time and space at the actual hearing.
We sent the ordinance back to the planners four times and each time I
put it back on the board until it was totally resolved. It actually
became an issue during the city campaigns for mayor, but by the time
of the elections it was an acceptable ordinance -- the steam had run
out of it. Finally, on its own momentum it came in front [of] the
city council for approval and not one person stood up on behalf of or
against it and the mayor shot off his mouth and wondered where all
those people were that were angry. So I wrote an open letter to the
editors of the newspapers. I said, "Well, look Mr. Mayor, it's now an
acceptable ordinance. But the more important point is that the public
hearing was held in the ROM of a neighborhood computer and where the
heck were you?"
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 85 13:32:05 PST
From: Brenda Ramsey <ramsey@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
To: krovetz@nlm-mcs
Subject: Online technical Reports
The UCLA Computer Science Department currently does not have an
accessible on-line list of technical reports or the reports
themselves. However, you may contact - Brenda Ramsey
<ramsey@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>. We request that all our reports be prepaid
- prices may be obtained by writing or calling direct - (213)
825-2778.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 85 16:13 EST
From: Kahin@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: MIT Communications Forum
Update on February 21 MIT Communications Forum Seminar, "Software
Protection and Marketing":
Jim Button, author of PC-File and PC-Calc and founder of Buttonware,
Inc., will be speaking at this seminar. A systems engineer for IBM
for 17 years, he is now one of the leading proponents and marketers of
user-supported software ("shareware")
(The other speakers are Todd Sun of Multimate International and Marvin
Goldschmidt of Lotus Development Corporation. The seminar will be
held at 4:00 in room 37-252.)
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************