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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 349
Netizens-Digest Friday, January 7 2000 Volume 01 : Number 349
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] A Troubled and Hopeful Earth Begins a New Millennium (US)
[netz] Benton: Farber joins FCC
[netz] New appointment to the FCC
[netz] Please help
[netz] Ecommerce is hype to try to stop netizenship and flourishing Internet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2000 16:24:23
From: John Walker <jwalker@networx.on.ca>
Subject: [netz] A Troubled and Hopeful Earth Begins a New Millennium (US)
Registrations for the On-line Learning Series of Courses are now
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Information is available at:
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Starting 1 February 2000
Creating web pages with HTML Level 1
Creating web pages with HTML Level 2
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The following is an excerpt from the CSS Internet News. If you are
going to pass this along to other Netizens please ensure that the
complete message is forwarded with all attributes intact.
http://www.bestnet.org/~jwalker/inews.htm
- --------------------
A Troubled and Hopeful Earth Begins a New Millennium (US)
By Ted Anthony
The Associated Press
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGIHA2ITV2C.html
Hour by frantic, expectant hour, a new millennium swept across the
planet today, uniting billions of human beings from Earth's every
corner in a satellite-linked pageant that greeted 2000 in
celebration, contemplation and wonder. With that, the tumultuous 20th
century was ending - convulsive and astonishing to the very last.
Welcoming the millennium first - at 5 a.m. EST, before 23 other time
zones - was Kiribati, a diminutive South Pacific island nation so
enthusiastic about the attention that it realigned its chunk of the
international date line east by two hours to stage the first
ceremony.
"Let us put aside all divisions. Let us unite in love and peace,"
grass-skirted dancers, illumiated by moonlight and the licking
flames of glowing torches, sang in Micronesian on a dark tropical
beach of Kiribati's usually uninhabited Millennium Island.
>From halfway across the world, though, two dramatic developments
grabbed a share of the attention. Ailing Russian President Boris
Yeltsin resigned abruptly 12 hours before 2000 arrived in Moscow,
surprising his nation and the world. The first post-Soviet
president, who helped end the wave of communism that spread across
the world for more than 70 years, turned power over to his prime
minister immediately.
And on a remote Afghan tarmac, hijackers freed 155 hostages who
spent a terrifying week as captives on a grounded Indian Airlines.
The hijackers drove away after the Indian government agreed to
release two militants and an Islamic cleric; the hostages clambered
off the plane shortly after.
Apprehensions about terrorism and technology had already been
clouding the world's millennial revelry. Nations, airlines and
computer users girded for eruptions of the Y2K bug. Police worldwide
braced for terrorist attacks. Americans, shaken by a spate of arrests
at their borders, looked around and wondered if violence would come.
"We're prepared for anything," said Cmdr. Steve Jones, a spokesman
for the Orange County Sheriff's Office in Orlando, Fla.
Fearing a millennium-linked terrorist plot, federal agents swept
across the nation Thursday, arresting people in two cities and
questioning dozens of others about whether an Algerian suspected of
smuggling explosives was part of a terrorist plot.
Security was stiffened at airports, borders, government buildings
and gathering places. A jittery Seattle canceled its party, and many
bashes months in the planning fizzled as people decided to stay
home. Emergency officials steeled themselves for a busy few days.
In New York City, where a souped-up version of the usual frenetic
midnight celebration was planned in Times Square, Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani implored citizens "not to let the psychology of fear infect
the way they act."
"Otherwise," he said, "we have let the terrorists win without
anybody striking a blow."
The dreaded Y2K bug made for some unease, too. In South Korea, for
example, a court computer ordered 170 people to appear for trial on
Jan. 4, 1900. Companies girded.
"The stress today is trying to think of what we forgot," said Lloyd
Stegemann, an executive at Rhode Island-based GTECH, the world's
largest lottery machine supplier.
But New Zealand, regarded as a Y2K test case for the industrialized
world, began 2000 with no reports of glitches. "The lights are still
on," said Basil Logan, chairman of the Y2K readiness commission.
The millennium's arrival ends what is perhaps human history's most
turbulent century - one that brought the world cars and planes,
transistors and TVs, microchips and the Internet and open-heart
surgery.
But there was also upheaval and violence on an unprecedented scale.
In wars, death camps and man-made famines, more people died more
quickly in the 1900s than ever before - in new conflicts and old
hatreds stoked by fresh technologies. The atom, harnessed, created
an efficient way to kill lots of people quickly. AIDS emerged.
With that parentage, the 21st century begins against a backdrop of
apprehension - about terrorism, technology and humanity's place in
an increasingly confusing world. Leaders around the world called for
calm and cooperation.
"We must ensure that in the coming century all our people live in
one America - an America where we are not separated from one another
by prejudice, by economic injustice, or by a digital divide,"
President Clinton said. He asked Americans to embrace change and
compassion while safeguarding democratic principles.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed the infant century's hope
but warned of its "new dangers - or old ones in a new and alarming
form."
Celebrations softened some of the unease.
An hour after Kiribati, New Zealand unleashed a starfield of
fireworks that flushed its sky with purples, oranges and violets. Two
hours later, Sydney treated 1.5 million onlookers to an elegant
harborside fireworks showcase four years in the making. Launched from
the city where the 2000 Summer Olympics will take place, the
pyrotechnics seemed to flow upward into the heavens like liquid.
In Cambodia, thousands streamed to the 800-year-old stone temples of
Angkor to celebrate. For Bethlehem, the moment meant freedom for
2,000 doves, flying into the floodlit night outside Christ's
traditional birthplace. They bet on horses in Hong Kong, prepared for
2,000 weddings in Thailand and streamed by the millions into the
world's public places.
Last up as the millennium cascades across the globe? French
Polynesia, which sits just opposite Kiribati on the international
date line.
Not everybody was celebrating. In Dhaka, the capital of
predominantly Muslim Bangladesh, authorities deployed 5,000 police to
stop New Year's revelers from drinking banned liquor and holding
street parties today. But many people planned hotel celebrations. "We
can't miss the fun," said Sohel Ahmed, a Dhaka University student.
Rabbis in Israel banned celebrations because New Year's coincides
with the Jewish Sabbath. Police tightened security today in
preparation for Christian pilgrims awaiting Jesus' return, 400,000
Muslims praying at a Jerusalem mosque and religious Jews ushering in
the Sabbath.
In China, a country that adopted the Western calendar just 50 years
ago, the government didn't seem to be enjoying the milestone much.
It kept a close watch to prevent chaos and doomsday cult activity,
and offered only limited official celebrations.
Technically, the century and millennium end Dec. 31, 2000, but the
world has overwhelmingly chosen to mark the moment now.
The current calendar, supposedly dating from Christ's birth, was
begun in Roman times and fine-tuned by medieval sages. It is used
throughout the world to conduct business, but at a historical and
religious level is often rejected. Jews, for example, view the year
as 5760; for Muslims it is 1420.
What was believed to be the first baby of the millennium, a boy, was
born in Auckland, New Zealand at 12:01 a.m. (6:01 a.m. EST), said
Waitakere Hospital General Manager Rachel Haggerty.
And, as 2000 approached the United States, one more milestone
unfolded on a smaller canvas in Allentown, Pa., where Sarah Knauss'
life ended. According to the Guinness Book of Records, she was the
world's oldest person - 119 years old.
She died quietly in a nursing home, some 33 hours before seeing her
third century.
- --------------
Also in this issue:
- - Words of the Century - From Telephone to Internet (US)
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - Ask John Morse, publisher of
Merriam-Webster Dictionaries, to name the word that defines the close
of the millennium and he doesn't hesitate: Internet. "No other word
has become part of people's lives so quickly or has had such an
impact," he says.
- - A Troubled and Hopeful Earth Begins a New Millennium (US)
Hour by frantic, expectant hour, a new millennium swept across the
planet today, uniting billions of human beings from Earth's every
corner in a satellite-linked pageant that greeted 2000 in
celebration, contemplation and wonder. With that, the tumultuous 20th
century was ending - convulsive and astonishing to the very last.
- - New Zealand eases into New Year
No Y2K troubles reported as key utilities remain up and running
without incident.
- - Rather than battle Web, malls join it (US)
BUFORD, Ga. - As Americans do more shopping from the convenience of
their computers, mall owners are working to make their
brick-and-mortar investments doorways to a retail world where Web
sites, catalogs and stores converge.
- - How the chip defined Silicon Valley (US)
It was the relative lack of silicon in the soil of Santa Clara
Valley that helped persuade eighteenth-century Spaniards to make this
fertile region the site of the first real city in California.
- - Hackers target UK rail information (UK)
Hackers broke into and distorted Railtrack's internet home page on
Friday as a Y2K prank.
- - RealNetworks sues startup over copyright issues (US)
SEATTLE -- RealNetworks Inc., the leader in broadcasting video and
audio over the Internet, is suing a Seattle-area start-up over
software that, among other things, allows users to copy RealNetworks
files and convert them into other formats.
- - It's the End of the Internet As We Know It (US)
At the precipice of Y2K disaster - and the end of civilization as we
know it - we're honored to write one of the last articles ever to be
published on the Internet. Finding a worthy topic for such a
momentous occasion was a struggle. But who can go wrong with an "end
of" countdown list?
- - Web site To Reward Y2K Workers (US)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Those stuck working the night shift while the
rest of the world rings in the new millennium may get a little
something unexpected in return.
- - New Lists and Journals
* NEW: ISP-NT Moderated Digest
* NEW: Moms Only
* NEW: AN ACTORS RESOURCE
and much more...
On-line Learning Series of Courses
http://www.bestnet.org/~jwalker/course.htm
Member: Association for International Business
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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_/ John S. Walker _/
_/ Publisher, CSS Internet News (tm) _/
_/ (Internet Training and Research) _/
_/ PO Box 57247, Jackson Stn., _/
_/ Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8P 4X1 _/
_/ Email jwalker@hwcn.org _/
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2000 00:21:07 -04
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] Benton: Farber joins FCC
INTERNET PIONEER TO BE NAMED TOP FCC TECHNOLOGIST
Issue: FCC
The Federal Communications Commission plans to announce today
that it has appointed David J. Farber, a University of Pennsylvania
professor and a pioneering computer scientist, as chief technologist for
the agency. Prof. Farber served last year as a Justice Department
expert witness in the Microsoft antitrust trial. Farber argued against one
of Microsoft's main contentions: that the way the company had chosen
to integrate its browser software into its Windows operating system was
the only possible technical alternative.
A pioneer of the Internet, Farber helped develop the first electronic
telephone switches while at Bell Laboratories in the 1960's. During the
1970's, he conducted ground-breaking work in networked computing
systems at the University of California at Irvine. Farber said that he
would get involved in a variety of technology issues at the FCC,
including high-speed and wireless networks, the convergence of
communications and computing technologies, the infusion of Internet
technology into the nation's communications system, and the impact of
the Internet on media the agency now regulates. "There is a struggle for
radio spectrum," he said, "and that is one of the issues we will have to
grapple with."
[SOURCE: New York Times (C6), AUTHOR: John Markoff]
http://www12.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/biztech/articles/03farb.html
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2000 09:01:44 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] New appointment to the FCC
kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller) wrote:
>INTERNET PIONEER TO BE NAMED TOP FCC TECHNOLOGIST
>Issue: FCC
Interesting that to welcome in the New Millennium in Russia,
Yelsin resigned, while in the US, someone who has been active
in helping to create and support the development of ICANN
is appointed to a position of great responsibility in
the US government.
Instead of helping to unravel ICANN and figure out what the
problem was that had to be solved and how to solve it,
ICANN continues and those involved in promoting
its formation are moving into positions where the problems
that they helped create with ICANN can be multiplied.
It would seem that before accepting such an appointment,
someone who had been involved with the creation of ICANN
and who recognized the fact that it is a serious problem
would take on to do what is needed to change that situation.
That hasn't happened.
But that is what needs to happen.
So this appointment gives the impression that the US government
is still living in the past while the world has moved to the
future.
One isn't surprised :(
Ronda
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 100 12:29:02 +0800 (WST)
From: Moira Kirkwood <kirkwood@library.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: [netz] Please help
Can anyone please direct me as to how to record a change of email
address for the Netizens mailing list? My former address will soon be
obsolete, as I have retired from work
Moira Kirkwood
Reid Library, University of Western Australia
email: kirkwood@library.uwa.edu.au
phone: + 61 08 9380 2348 ; (Aust. 08 9380 2348)
fax : + 61 08 9380 1012 ; (Aust. 08 9380 1012)
Opinions expressed are my own.
* * * * * *
Happiness and fulfilment derive, not from what we get out of life,
but from what we put into it.
* * * * * *
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 16:16:02 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] Ecommerce is hype to try to stop netizenship and flourishing Internet
I was recently realizing that the US, government, media and
business e-commerce hype is not so much an interest they have
but a weapon to try to stem netizenship and the educational
and scientific and other cooperative and resource sharing
activities that are the basis for the origin and development
of the Internet.
And then I came across this article which in some ways helps
to document the nature of the hype of "e-commerce" attack on
the Internet's healthy development.
>From: tnadler@trial.freedom.net
>Subject: Media's role in commercializing the internet
>Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 17:02:15 -0800
>
>
>Dave,
>I believe that you may redistribute this column in full for non-profit use.
>The author maintains a mailing list for those who wish to receive it via
>email, and no restrictions accompany the article.
>
>
>
>WHAT HAPPENED TO THE "INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY"?
>
>By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate
>
>
>A few numbers tell a dramatic story about extreme changes in media
>fascination with the Internet.
>
>After the 1990s ended, I set out to gauge how news coverage of cyberspace
>shifted during the last half of the decade. The comprehensive Nexis database
>yielded some revealing statistics:
>
>* In 1995, media outlets were transfixed with the Internet as an amazing
>source of knowledge. Major newspapers in the United States and abroad
>referred to the "information superhighway" in 4,562 stories. Meanwhile,
>during the entire year, articles mentioned "e-commerce" or "electronic
>commerce" only 915 times.
>
>* In 1996, coverage of the Internet as an "information superhighway" fell to
>2,370 stories in major newspapers, about half the previous year's level. At
>the same time, coverage of electronic commerce nearly doubled, with mentions
>in 1,662 articles.
>
>* For the first time, in 1997 the news media's emphasis on the Internet
>mainly touted it as a commercial avenue. The quantity of articles in major
>newspapers mentioning the "information superhighway" dropped sharply, to
>just 1,314. Meanwhile, the references to e-commerce gained further momentum,
>jumping to 2,812 articles.
>
>* In 1998, despite an enormous upsurge of people online, the concept of an
>"information superhighway" appeared in only 945 articles in major
>newspapers. Simultaneously, e-commerce became a media obsession, with those
>newspapers referring to it in 6,403 articles.
>
>* In 1999, while Internet usage continued to grow by leaps and bounds, the
>news media played down "information superhighway" imagery (with a mere 842
>mentions in major papers). But media mania for electronic commerce exploded.
>Major newspapers mentioned e-commerce in 20,641 articles.
>
>How did America's most influential daily papers frame the potentialities of
>the Internet? During the last five years of the 1990s, the annual number of
>Washington Post articles mentioning the "information superhighway" went from
>178 to 20, while such New York Times articles went from 100 to 17. But
>during the same half decade, the yearly total of stories referring to
>electronic commerce zoomed -- rising in the Post from 19 to 430 and in the
>Times from 52 to 731.
>
>In other prominent American newspapers, the pattern was similar. The Los
>Angeles Times stalled out on the "information superhighway," going from 192
>stories in 1995 to a measly 33 in 1999; Chicago Tribune articles went from
>170 to 22. Meanwhile, the e-commerce bandwagon went into overdrive: The L.A.
>Times accelerated from 24 to 1,243 stories per year. The Chicago Tribune
>escalated from 8 to 486.
>
>Five years ago, there was tremendous enthusiasm for the emerging World Wide
>Web. Talk about the "information superhighway" evoked images of
>freewheeling, wide-ranging exploration. The phrase suggested that the Web
>was primarily a resource for learning and communication. Today, according to
>the prevalent spin, the Web is best understood as a way to make and spend
>money.
>
>The drastic shift in media coverage mirrors the strip-malling of the Web by
>investors with deep pockets and neon sensibilities. But mainstream news
>outlets have been prescriptive as well as descriptive. They aren't merely
>reporting on the big-bucks transformation of the Internet, they're also
>hyping it -- and often directly participating. Many of the same mega-firms
>that dominate magazine racks and airwaves are now dominating the Web with
>extensively promoted sites.
>
>Yes, e-mail can be wonderful. Yes, the Internet has proven invaluable for
>activists with high ideals and low budgets. And yes, Web searches can locate
>a lot of information within seconds. But let's get a grip on what has been
>happening to the World Wide Web overall.
>
>The news media's recalibration of public expectations for the Internet has
>occurred in tandem with the steady commercialization of cyberspace. More and
>more, big money is weaving the Web, and the most heavily trafficked websites
>reflect that reality. Almost all of the Web's largest-volume sites are now
>owned by huge conglomerates. Even search-engine results are increasingly
>skewed, with priority placements greased by behind-the-scenes fees.
>
>These days, "information superhighway" sounds outmoded and vaguely quaint.
>The World Wide Web isn't supposed to make sense nearly as much as it's
>supposed to make money. All glory to electronic commerce! As Martha Stewart
>rejoiced in a December 1998 Newsweek essay: "The Web gives us younger, more
>affluent buyers."
>
>Establishing a pantheon of cyber-heroes, media coverage has cast businessmen
>like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Steve Case as great visionaries. If your
>hopes for the communications future are along the lines of Microsoft,
>Amazon.com and America Online, you'll be mighty pleased.
>
>_________________________________________________
>
>Norman Solomon is a syndicated columnist. His latest book is "The Habits of
>Highly Deceptive Media."
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
- ---------
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #349
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