🚀 go-pugleaf

More stuff from Jim Warren.  Again, if you're interested in getting
this first-hand, please e-mail him at jwarren@well.sf.ca.us.

-----------------

Feb.12, 1994

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the 
people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise 
that control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from 
them, but to inform their discretion."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1820
[passed along by retired Linus Pauling research librarian Ruth Reynolds]

SHARE WORTHY WORDS
  Please forward *brief* (max. of ~5 lines + citation) quotes from the 
history of our nation, and the much longer history of freedom/liberty and 
democracy for prefix to future postings.  Please verify wording & source. 
(History extends back in time, starting from a minute or so ago.)

===

WHEN SENDING INFO, PLEASE INDICATE IF I MAY REPOST IT & MAY CITE YOU AS SOURCE
  I receive some information.  Some of it - perhaps much of it - is *well* 
worth sharing by repost to this list and/or elsewhere; the power of the net.
Some of it is highly sensitive and/or provocative.

CONTENT
  Some of it is clearly offered in confidence, not for reposting - and I have 
and will honor such confidences, when requested or otherwise self-evident.
(I don't burn my sources! :-)
  Some of it is clearly offered for reposting, which is - by definition - at 
my discretion.
  Some is ambiguous as to whether I may or may not repost.  Thus, GovAccess 
groundrule:  I reserve the right to repost anything I receive, unless it 
includes an *explicit request* that I not do so - which I will honor.

SOURCE
  I always *prefer* to give full attribution to my sources - of ideas, 
opinions and alleged information - by including the header source-address 
and date-stamp as is customary across the net.  However, because I get so 
much "inside" information, I will often redact (remove) all source-
identifing components before reposting - especially for possibly-sensitive 
or provocative information, lest the source harmed or disciplined for their 
disclosures.
  Please explicitly state whether I may give due credit the my source, 
which is my preference, or should remove source-id info before reposting.  
Otherwise, God Forbid!, I will exercise my own ever-so-imperfect judgement.

===

SV-PAL OFFERS INTERNET ACCESS FOR $20 PER *YEAR*!!
        All the talk and promotion for the information highway has 
companies and investment groups scrambling to determine their 
part in this new age for communications.  Much of the attention is 
focused on how the network will be organized, architected and 
constructed.  But more important is who will it serve, what is its 
benefits and how can it be used.  Answers to these issues are more 
likely to come from the efforts of groups like SV-PAL, the Silicon 
Valley - Public Access Link, when it opens its doors in late February.
        SV-PAL is committed to increasing the numbers of people in 
Silicon Valley that access and benefit from on-line information.  
SV-PAL's three fold objectives:
o  Provide broader on-line access to local information,
o  Provide on-line access to global information through the Internet,
 and
o  Educate people about on-line resources,
goes to the heart of determining the purposes and values for the 
coming age of communications.  Because SV-PAL is so committed to 
expanding the access to on-line information beyond the present base 
of users, a comprehensive menuing interface was developed to simplify 
the user interface.  One of its most amazing attributes is how the 
resources of the Internet are made available without technical 
education on UNIX shell commands for users.
        Preparation for SV-PAL's general roll out at the end of 
February has been progressing for about a year.  Over 100 users 
have been in a Beta Test since October of 1993.  By March SV-
PAL plans to make available to individuals and households full 
local information and Internet access for a twenty dollar annual 
fee.  Special arrangements for independent accounts for minors 
will also be available.  There are no time based usage charges 
although individual sessions will be limited to one hour of connect 
time in order to provide equity of access.
        Local information will include items like city council 
agendas, schedules for cultural attractions, schedules for youth 
activities and sports programs as well as information of a more 
commercial nature.  Later, SV-PAL expects to offer a geographical 
data base that allows for graphically locating events, specific 
activity routes and any other graphical information.
        Global information is provided through access to the Internet:
o  Electronic Mail to the 20+ million Internet subscribers around 
      the world,
o  Telnet connections to remote hosts,
o  FTP, WWW and Gopher access to remote data bases,
o  News net access to the thousands of news topics carried on the 
      Internet.
Other  features may be added in the future.  
        Even though its doors are not yet officially open, SV-PAL 
became instrumental to at least one part of the world's largest 
information resource (the Internet) when it offered the first Gopher 
service to the new California Legislative Data Base in January just 
days after the data became available to the Internet.  In its first 
week of existence almost 1000 inquiries were made through this 
Gopher.  Most of these were from people at other Internet hosts 
pointing their Gophers at SV-PAL's Gopher for the information.
        Just as significant as the actual on-line services are the 
educational programs designed to make novice users more 
effective in approaching on-line services.  For a nominal fee 
anyone can attend a two hour class that describes how to use the 
on-line facility including the Internet.  In preparation for general 
availability, SV-PAL held six classes in January and plans to 
conduct seven in February.  A full schedule is planned through the 
spring and early summer.
        Beyond classes, SV-PAL plans to locate public access 
terminals with some limitations on the functions provided at 
various public locations around the south bay.  At one of these 
terminals people can experience accessing data remotely as well as 
getting information about what is happening in the Silicon Valley.
        Although inspired by the success of freenets, SV-PAL is a 
significantly new type of on-line experiment.  SV-PAL is designed 
to be self sustaining.  Other freenets have been spectacularly 
successful.  But, typically they depend upon a large institutional or 
corporate sponsor.  SV-PAL is planned to be self sustaining.  
Chartered as a 501(c)(3) non profit corporation, the organization 
benefits those who choose to donate equipment and in fact 
depends upon equipment donations.  The volunteer staff of over 
30 people come from Silicon Valley's most respected companies.  
Systems procedures comparable to the procedures at the volunteers 
host companies have been developed to ensure SV-PAL's smooth 
operation.  The beta test has been operating from Monta Vista 
High School in Cupertino.  (The school Vice-President Gore 
visited in January.)  A second site, networked with the first, will be 
brought up at San Jose State University, in February.  A third site 
is planned in the next few months.
        Organizations with information to provide are encouraged to 
contact SV-PAL.  Information providers are grouped into those 
with less than one Megabyte of information, one to ten megabytes, 
and those with more than ten megabytes.  Information may be 
loaded onto SV-PAL's hosts as text files or may be built into a 
postgres database to allow users to search through the information.  
Special programs allow information providers with large and 
dynamic information to maintain the data on their own machines 
and be contacted on-demand when users make specific requests.  
Very nominal annual fees comparable to the user fee are charged.
        For those seeking to learn what the coming age of on-line 
communications and information is really about, you might want 
to call SV-PAL at 415/967-2873.
---
>From selmeier@svpal.org Sun Feb  6 22:17:10 1994
 I am the marketing director for SV-PAL.  You may direct any questions 
back to me.  Thank you.
--Bill Selmeier

===

PUBLIC LIBRARY OFFERS 80 TERMINALS CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET
  Here 60 miles north of San Francisco, our Santa Rosa Public library
announced free public access to the internet starting in March, the only one in
the state of CA.  This has been brought about through a State Grant and is in
concert with our State University System.  Not only will there be 80 terminals
located throught our public library system, there will be eight dialup lines
for people to connect from home or business. Hope this helps. PJ
~   Patrick Laherty
~   Education Specialist-Technology      plahert@ctp.org
~   Sonoma County Office of Education    Voice  (707) 524-2809
~   5340 Skylane Blvd                    Fax    (707) 578-0220
~   Santa Rosa, CA 95403

===

CALIF STATE GOVT INFO-TECH STRATEGY -- SANS PUBLIC ACCESS?
  [from a possibly-sensitive source]  ...have you seen
a copy of "Strategic Direction for Information Technology in California State
Govenment 1993-1999" published by the DOF Office of Information Technology
last July? (Copies available via snailmail at 915 L Street, Sacramento,
95814-3706) Lots of chatter about "strategic management of information
technology", "infrastructure-based technical management" and "competitive
management of information technology" but not a word that I saw on a quick
cruise through the document of public access to the resources. The official
snapshot of information technology implementation in state government.

===

NATIONAL WILDLIFE SEEKS ONLINE INPUT TO ADMINISTRATION PLANNING
 Organization: National Wildlife Federation
> Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 20:23:55 GMT
> Approved: riddle@tic.com (Moderator, Prentiss Riddle)
>
> The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has asked President Clinton to
> issue an Executive Order directing all agencies of the federal government
> to establish processes for accepting on-line comments to public notices.
> A copy of NWF's request follows.  Please express support by sending your
> comments to president@whitehouse.gov -- Bill Clinton's e-mail address.
> You can obtain further information about NWF's Request for Action
> regarding the Administration's "Alaska Wetlands Initiative" by sending
> e-mail to: alaska-wetlands-info@igc.apc.org

===

CALIF DEFENSE-WORK CONVERSION PROJECT
  From : "John Jewell (jjewell@library.ca.gov)   Tue Feb  8 11:36:35 1994
Subject: Defense Conversion Workshop (California)
  Good to see the AB1624 materials now up.  We have pointed our internal 
gopher at both the UCSC and SV-PAL gophers, so that our staff can have 
access and see which structure is most useful for them.
  One of the people here at the Research Bureau has put together what I
think is an outstanding workshop on defense conversion the last week in
February.  The speakers are major players, both from Washington and here
in California).  I have sent announcements to PACS-L and CALDOC-L, and
will be sending to GOVDOC-L, but would like to get it circulated much more. 
---
  The California Research Bureau, within the California State Library, has 
been actively involved in defense conversion issues during this last 
year.  One of the products is a major workshop to help those working in 
this area, developed in cooperation with the University of California 
Extension at Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, and others.
  I would appreciate your bringing this announcement to the attention of 
individuals you know who might be interested.
  Contact information for the workshop is included at the end of the 
announcement.  For additional information regarding the work of the 
California Research Bureau in defense conversion, our lead person is 
Charlene Simmons, Assistant Director for General Government.  She can be 
reached at:  (916) 322-0600.  Her Internet address is:  
csimmons@library.ca.gov.
  John Jewell
California Research Bureau / California State Library
jjewell@library.ca.gov
(916) 322-0262
---
Conference on Defense Diversification and Economic Conversion, presented by 
the California Research Bureau and University Extension.
Two Locations:           February 24 - Marriott Hotel at Los Angeles Airport
                                       Los Angeles, California
                         February 25 - Santa Clara Convention Center
                                       Santa Clara California
These one day conferences are intended for California defense-dependent 
companies, their subcontractors and suppliers, trade associations, 
universities and federal laboratories, and interested local, state, and 
federal officials.  Co-sponsors are the U.S. Department of Commerce, 
California Trade & Commerce Agency, Silicon Valley Defense/Space Consortium 
and the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation.  
  Speakers include key industry experts and policymakers, leading industry and
government efforts to diversify California's defense-dependent companies and 
economy.  They include H. Lee Buchanan III, of the federal Advanced Research 
Projects Agency (ARPA) and Director of the Technology Reinvestment Project; 
and Dorothy Robyn who is Special Assistant to the President for Economic 
Policy.
  Key topics:  federal programs available to assist defense-dependent 
businesses move into the commerical sector; business diversification 
strategies being implemented by California companies; technology transfer 
opportunities; and market considerations.
  Conference fee is $95, including lunch and materials.  For more information, 
or a brochure, send inquiries via Bitnet e-mail to ydomingu@unex.ucla.edu or 
call the UCLA Extension Public Policy Program at 310-825-7885; or fax your 
inquiry to Y. Dominguez at 310-206-5066. 

===

CASCADING GovAccess POSTINGS ACROSS THE NET
  I am resending your messages to alt.california, ca.politics, ca.general,
la.general, and recently, to ba.general, and ba.politics.  There may be
additional regional groups, but I haven't posted there.  The ca.*
heirarchy is sufficiently low-traffic that most Cal sites should carry
it with no problems (and quite a few out-of-state ones, as well).
  Robert L. McMillin  | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com
---
*Many* thanks, Robert.  --jim

===

My apologies for delay in posting these (and those that will follow shortly).
Have been up to my eyestalks in offline government swamps.

Mo' as it Is.
--jim
Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc.
345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/415-851-2814
**To join or drop from the GovAccess list, email to jwarren@well.sf.ca.us.**

  >>Permission herewith granted for unlimited reposting and recirculation.<<

-- 
Robert L. McMillin  | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com
 geek code: GAT d-- p--- c++++ l(++)+++@ u++ e-/* m++(*)@ s/+
		!n h---(*) f g+(-) w+ t- r y+

Annuit coeptis.  Novus ordo seclorum.  E pluribus unum.  Ask me how!