Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 18:38:10 -0700
From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: TOURBUS -- 1 MAY 1997 -- A SCHOLARLY PAPER ON SPAM / THE FAQ FINDER
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\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
TODAY'S STOPS: A SCHOLARLY PAPER ON SPAM / THE FAQ FINDER
TODAY'S ADDRESSES:
http://server.berkeley.edu/BTLJ/articles/11-2/carroll.html
http://ps.superb.net/FAQ/
Hi, kids! One of the questions that I am most often asked is "how can I
virus-check the files that I download from the Net?" The simple answer is
"purchase a commercial anti-virus program and update it often." However,
since I despise simple answers, your fearless bus driver has decided to
write an entire TOURBUS post on this subject. Unfortunately, next week is
finals week here at the University of Alabama, so be looking for my
anti-virus post *two* weeks from today. :)
Back on April 18th of last year, we pulled our little bus of Internet
happiness into The Daily Brief, a two to three page news summary sent out
every weekday morning. Well, I am happy to announce that The Daily Brief
is one of the sponsors of today's TOURBUS post, and they have a new medical
news service that you might want to check out:
+--------------------- THE MED-BRIEF ----------------------+
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| "subscribe" as the message subject. http://www.incinc.net |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
A SCHOLARLY PAPER ON SPAM
-------------------------
The only thing that frustrates me even more than a slow Internet connection
is a mailbox full of unsolicited e-mail advertisements (a.k.a. "spams").
It seems that the number of spams that I receive grows exponentially every
day.
Is there any way that we, or our governments, can just turn off this flood
of spam? Can't we just outlaw it? Well, today's first TOURBUS stop tries
to answer these questions.
I found an absolutely wonderful scholarly paper on the topic of unsolicited
commercial solicitations in The Berkeley Technology Law Journal, which is
published by the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School
of Law. The paper's title is "Garbage In: Emerging Media and Regulation of
Unsolicited Commercial Solicitations" and the paper can be found on the Web
at
http://server.berkeley.edu/BTLJ/articles/11-2/carroll.html
If you are looking for what is probably the definitive explanation of
unsolicited commercial solicitations and the legal ramifications arising
from these solicitations, look no further. I would especially recommend
this paper for any of our bus riders who are teachers, librarians, lawyers,
or dedicated anti-spam advocates.
I do have one word of warning, though: this paper, like most law school
journal papers, is rather long -- I counted 211 footnotes (*211!!*) -- and
the folks at the Berkeley Technology Law Journal put the entire article on
the Web as one extremely large (170 K) Web page. In other words, while
this article is a must read for anyone who wants to know more about spam
and other unsolicited commercial advertisements, expect to wait a while for
the article to completely download.
THE FAQ FINDER
--------------
Some of the best (and least-used) resources on the Internet are the Net's
"Frequently Asked Questions" (or "FAQ") files. If you are looking for
answers to questions ranging from "what is the fastest NASCAR
superspeedway" to "where can I find information about embedded processors
and enhanced IDE/Fast-ATA/ATA-2," chances are there is a FAQ file somewhere
on the Internet that answers your question.
The problem is finding the FAQ file.
Enter the FAQ Finder. The FAQ Finder can be found on the Web at
http://ps.superb.net/FAQ/
and it has links to 1,800 FAQ files around the world. Best of all, the FAQ
finder has sorted these FAQ files into 28 browsable categories:
Animals Health Politics & Law
Art Hobby Programming
Audio Internet Religion
Comedy Lifestyles Science
Computers Literature Social Science
Countries Movies Software
Education Music Sports
Food People Technology
Games Prsnl Finance TV Shows
... and, of course, Video
In short, if you have a question that you think might have been asked
before, chances are that the FAQ Finder will be able to give you a link to
a site where you can find the answer to your question.
Browsing through the FAQ Finder's categories is pretty easy. If you click
on a category, the FAQ Finder will display all of the FAQ links that it
feels belong in that category. And with 1,800 FAQ links, the FAQ Finder
opens the door to one heck of a lot of information!
Who would have guessed that FAQ browsing could be so much fun?
That's it for this week. Have a safe and happy weekend, and make sure that
you pay a visit to our sponsors and thank them for keeping us on the road
for another week! :)
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TODAY'S STOPS: A SCHOLARLY PAPER ON SPAM / THE FAQ FINDER
TODAY'S ADDRESSES:
http://server.berkeley.edu/BTLJ/articles/11-2/carroll.html
http://ps.superb.net/FAQ/
--------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY
--------------------------------
Someone recently sent me a really long list of Southern Words.
Unfortunately, I had seen all of those Southern Words before. It turns out
that the person who submitted that list of words had "creatively acquired"
them by copying them from my Southern Word homepage at
. Wait, it gets better. This
"creative acquirer" even took the liberty of deleting the names of the
original words' "authors" so that he could take credit for the list of
Southern Words himself.
Fortunately, this episode is not a complete loss. Our "creative acquirer"
did add a new word to the list that was not all that un-funny. So, today's
Southern Word comes courtesy of that "creative acquirer," whom I made sure
to credit ...
HEIDI (noun). Greeting.
HIRE YEW (phrase). A question
Usage: "Heidi. Hire yew."
(Special thanks to a THEIVIN' YANKEE for today's words.) :)
YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD
HOMEPAGE AT http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~crispen/word.html
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For info on my new book "Atlas for the Information Superhighway"
visit http://ua1ix.ua.edu/~crispen/atlas.html
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All rights reserved. Redistribution is allowed only with permission.
Send this copy to 3 friends and tell them to get on the Bus!
.~~~.
(\__/) .' ) Patrick Douglas Crispen
/o o \/ .~ The University of Alabama
{o_, \ { crispen@campus.mci.net
/ , , ) \ http://ua1ix.ua.edu/~crispen/
`~ '-' \ }
_( ( )_.' Warning: squirrels.
'---..{____}
