T3B@psuvm.BITNET (08/26/85)
Suppose, for travellers, a network of volunteers could post
to the net each day, for their region, state, or city, the
weather and local forecast. Each posting could list as its
subject line the region/state/ or city and the date. Could
this be dependable? Would volunteers keep up? Would it be
a copyright or license violation to pull information from local
newspaper and radio? The postings could be set to expire in
1 or 2 days; the whole group would run, at any one time,
perhaps 50 to 100 postings.
-- Tom Benson
Penn State University
227 Sparks Bldg., University Park, PA 16802
814-238-5277 (ATT)
{akgua,allegra,ihnp4,cbosgd}!psuvax1!psuvm.bitnet!t3b (UUCP)
T3B@PSUVM (BITNET) 76044,3701 (COMPUSERVE)
jgd@uwmcsd1.UUCP (John G Dobnick) (08/28/85)
In article <2144T3B@psuvm> Tom Benson writes: > Suppose... a network of volunteers could post to the net each day... > the weather and local forecast. ... > ... The postings could be set to expire in > 1 or 2 days... > {akgua,allegra,ihnp4,cbosgd}!psuvax1!psuvm.bitnet!t3b (UUCP) I don't think this will work, at least not with the USENET. The propagation time for the net is greater than the suggested expiration period. [I note that Mr. Benson is on BITNET. I assume the message propogation time is *significantly* less on that net than on *our* (:-) net, so he may be unaware of this problem.] The major problem with this suggestion in the timeliness of the information; and I don't think it will be. -- -- John G Dobnick Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (...ihnp4!uwmcsd1!jgd)
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/28/85)
This is a joke, right? C'mon! I have trouble thinking of anything with less potential as a newsgroup in our current distribution environment than weather! Even in localized areas news often takes slow distribution paths, and weather info would be obsolete before most people saw it even locally. The situation would be even worse for "travelers" interested in distant weather. The local people can turn on the TV or radio and get current weather info. Distant people can do the same thing and get national weather forecasts that are perfectly adequate for travel purposes. This network isn't a substitute for local news and information media! To use it as if it was is wasting incredible amounts of time and money. When you create new newsgroups you create new noise. I'm convinced that you could create a group called net.fur and suddenly find out that, sure enough, 15 or 20 people were fur fetishists and thought it was a great group--and then would start filling the net with various fur-oriented articles. But just because something CAN be talked about on this network, does that mean it SHOULD be? This newsgroup creation situation is getting out of hand. Excuse me, let me correct that... it's ALREADY out of hand. --Lauren--
presley@mhuxj.UUCP (Joe Presley) (08/28/85)
Why stop there? I propose that we create a newsgroup called net.976, with subdivisions for weather, time, horoscope, etc. :-). You can look in net.976.1616 to find out what the current time is (you happy now, Peter?). There's bound to be someone who wants to know what the current date is; let's give him a newsgroup! * 976 is a trademark of NY Bell, NJ Bell, and who knows what else. -- Joe Presley (whuxl!presley)
matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (08/28/85)
Here in the Chicago area, we do have such a service in newsgroup "chi.weather". Site mgweed of AT&T IS takes all the National Weather Service broadcasts, inculding forecasts, alerts and statistics, and sends them over USENET. We receive them in timely fashion at oddjob, 3 hops from mgweed. Maybe some radio amateur (or professional) with RTTY capability could do the same in another area? _____________________________________________________ Matt University crawford@anl-mcs.arpa Crawford of Chicago ihnp4!oddjob!matt
dwight@timeinc.UUCP (Dwight Ernest) (08/28/85)
In article <760@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: >This is a joke, right? C'mon! >This network isn't a substitute for local news and information media! >To use it as if it was is wasting incredible amounts of time and money. > >This newsgroup creation situation is getting out of hand. Excuse me, >let me correct that... it's ALREADY out of hand. >--Lauren-- AGREED! And let's not let the patently obvious idiocy in such a wacky proposal hide the (possibly, to some) less obvious idiocy in other proposed newsgroup creation proposals. -- --Dwight Ernest KA2CNN \ Usenet:...vax135!timeinc!dwight Time Inc. Edit./Prod. Tech. Grp., New York City Voice: (212) 554-5061 \ Compuserve: 70210,523 "The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Time Incorporated."
sdo@u1100a.UUCP (Scott Orshan) (08/29/85)
In article <760@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: >This network isn't a substitute for local news and information media! >To use it as if it was is wasting incredible amounts of time and money. Based on the articles we read, the network is a substitute for: Newspapers, television news, libraries, telephone directories, doctors, lawyers, teachers, human companionship, magazines, and of course, work. I think that there should be a weather newsgroup, only it should be for local weather. That way we could tell what the weather was like during the days we spent indoors reading news. This could include special postings at nightfall and daybreak. The human body needs to know this for its daily cycles. > >This newsgroup creation situation is getting out of hand. Excuse me, >let me correct that... it's ALREADY out of hand. > >--Lauren-- If you think it's bad now, wait a week for all the new college students to arrive. -- Scott Orshan Bell Communications Research 201-981-3064 {ihnp4,bellcore,pyuxww}!u1100a!sdo
fred@gymble.UUCP (Fred Blonder) (08/29/85)
> From: T3B@psuvm.BITNET > Newsgroups: net.news.group > Subject: Possible group: net.news.weather > Message-ID: <2144T3B@psuvm> > > Suppose, for travellers, a network of volunteers could post to > the net each day, for their region, state, or city, the weather > and local forecast. Each posting could list as its subject line > the region/state/ or city and the date. Could this be > dependable? Would volunteers keep up? Would it be a copyright > or license violation to pull information from local newspaper and > radio? The postings could be set to expire in 1 or 2 days; the > whole group would run, at any one time, perhaps 50 to 100 > postings. A cute idea, but the problems I see are: a) I doubt that it could be made uniformly reliable b) With the slow propagation of netnews, forecasts wouldn't be especially timely after travewrsing a major portion of the net. -- All characters mentioned herein are fictitious. Any similarity to actual characters, ASCII or EBCDIC is purely coincidental. Fred Blonder (301) 454-7690 Fred@Maryland.{ARPA,CSNet} seismo!umcp-cs!fred
gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) (08/30/85)
Most metropolitan areas have a weather number you can call. I have
found that I can just call Information ((xxx) 555-1212) for that
city and ask for a weather information number.
I have also seen a pamphlet in hotels which lists weather info numbers
in various cities.
--
Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,hplabs}!amdahl!gamlauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/30/85)
Correct. I should have said this network SHOULDN'T be a substitute for local media. Obviously, some people treat it as if it were. My favorite recent case was the announcement of Classic Coke. It was the most widely hailed public notice in the media--making front page headlines and dominating all the news programs. But person after person guessed that they'd be the first one to tell the net about it, and so for days we saw people announcing what we all already knew. Network latencies being what they are, the posting of any sort of "news bulletins" just adds to the noise unless it's something that wouldn't normally be covered by the media. --Lauren--
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/30/85)
Unfortunately, the retransmission of NWS data in that manner may be technically illegal (at least it sure sounded that way the last time I asked NWS about the rules governing data use locally). In any case, if people really want to play weather games, it is ESSENTIAL that they keep to local, quick-turnaround paths. Much of Usenet does NOT fall into that category, so trying to send weather data non-locally would just be wasteful. --Lauren--
john@frog.UUCP (John Woods) (08/30/85)
> In article <760@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: > >This network isn't a substitute for local news and information media! > >To use it as if it was is wasting incredible amounts of time and money. > Based on the articles we read, the network is a substitute for: > > Newspapers, television news, libraries, telephone directories, > doctors, lawyers, teachers, human companionship, magazines, > and of course, work. I think that there should be a weather > newsgroup, only it should be for local weather. That way > we could tell what the weather was like during the days we spent > indoors reading news. This could include special postings at > nightfall and daybreak. The human body needs to know this for > its daily cycles. > Based on the typical netnews article, I suggest that net.weather ought to be for postings on NON-local weather, i.e., I would post articles about what I thought the weather in Southern California is (or should be) right now, and people in California could discuss the probable weather in Florida. And, of course, postings from people in Florida insisting that it is ABSOLUTELY NOT snowing down there now (which we have already decided must be true) will result in immense flaming... -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA You have violated Robots Rules of Order, and will be asked to leave The Future!
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (09/01/85)
Please note that in 291@frog.UUCP the quote of mine was only the first few lines. The author added someone's reply to my original msg as if it were part of my message. The paragraph about having a net.weather group for people's "bodily rhythms" and that also included a long list of different sorts of media was NOT from my message. Just setting the record straight since several people asked me about that posting. --Lauren--
tanner@ki4pv.UUCP (Tanner Andrews) (09/04/85)
] call information (xxx/555-1212) for local weather number The weather request number for DeLand and DeLand Jct is 904/736-0406. Unfortunately, we're booked up for a while, and with the snowbirds coming back in droves you'll have to wait your turn. Seriously, you can't do much about the wx. Don't discuss it. Don't newsgroup it. -- <std dsclm, copies upon request> Tanner Andrews, KI4PV uucp: ...!decvax!ucf-cs!ki4pv!tanner
kay@warwick.UUCP (Kay Dekker) (09/07/85)
In article <760@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: >This is a joke, right?... ... > ...I'm convinced that >you could create a group called net.fur and suddenly find out that, >sure enough, 15 or 20 people were fur fetishists and thought it >was a great group--and then would start filling the net with >various fur-oriented articles. But just because something CAN be >talked about on this network, does that mean it SHOULD be? Seriously, though, you do seem to have raised a point, Lauren: where *do* people discuss fur fetishism? or, indeed, any particular fetishes? I agree, net.fur probably would be a little too specialised for the net - it probably wouldn't have any great volume, and should probably be kept to a mailing list. But how about net.fetish? There are probably more generic fetishists than Ada programmers, and, if we can have net.lang.ada, perhaps there is room, say, in net.rec for a fetishists group? Or mod.fetish? Or what? Or were you being ironic? Kay. -- "A boy does not put his hand into his pocket until every other means of gaining his end has failed." _Tommy_, by J. M. Barrie. ... mcvax!ukc!warwick!flame!kay
rich@aoa.UUCP (Rich Snow) (09/10/85)
In article <1963@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes: >Most metropolitan areas have a weather number you can call. Boston's is cute, it spells WEN-CHES, which made sense back when they had female announcers on the tape... also, time here is NERVOUS. Rich Snow ...!{decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!aoa!rich