From 1993 to 1996, the Island Independent newspaper offered incisive, wide-ranging commentary on community and bioregional issues, and evidenced a literary panorama and level of excellence which was sorely needed, and is sorely missed.
Quick question: What do the Scarecrow, King Arthur, and Luke Skywalker have in common? BRAAPP! Time's up. Answer: They were all concerned with "Where". Where do I find some brains? Where do I find the Holy Grail? Where's Obi Wan? "Where?" is a big deal, and it's perched right up there with "How?"
Back in the real world, if my Subaru needs some TLC, I can find instructions in a repair manual at the library. If I want to find out how much a brand new 747 will cost, I look in the "B's" in the phone book. But if I want to find out about vehicle wood gas generators, where do I look? That question actually came up, just yesterday. And since the question of "where" had recently been posed by a senior official of the II, I think this is a good time to tell you where I went online to find something as arcane as wood gas generators.
Ecomm roughly breaks down into two branches: text-based information and the Web. Text is just text, with no fancy characters or spacing, but that's where much of the Net's information is found: in e-mail, newsgroups, and lists. The Web has text too, but adds pictures and nifty graphics.
E-mail is a personal use of text, where you can write a note to a friend in Cincinnati, or receive a strawberry trifle recipe from another; an electronic tete a tete. The complicated stuff as to how this is done is handled by your computer's mail program. The mailer also has an address book, and often includes a file cabinet wherein you can sort and store messages you receive, such as the trifle recipe. E-mail can connect you with people whose address you already know, but it isn't very good at finding people you don't know. So to get around that problem, you can either call the person on the phone or, if they live in Australia, you can consult newsgroups and lists, which are full of people who know other people.
Lists and newsgroups are electronic sites where people get together to talk about shared interests. Movies, dog breeding, automobiles, musical instruments, social phenomenon, games, sports, travel, and interests of every imaginable (and un-imaginable) kind are found in lists and newsgroups. So what kind of selection is that? Over 10,000 right now, and that's only the newsgroup count. Lists and newsgroups differ in significant ways, so a few words on each are in order.
Newsgroups are easier to imagine, mostly because they are easier to find and join. Not long ago, one had to have a news reader program to access newsgroups, but now news readers are integrated into the software package that you get when you sign on with an Internet provider. So once you have a news reader and news access, you simply tell your program to find the newsgroup index and then you can subscribe to whatever tweaks your fancy. With 10,000 choices its easy to find a few. Then whenever you want, you can peek into the current postings of the group to see what's going on.
If you are looking for specific information, you find a newsgroup that might have people knowledgeable in the area, and then post a note that you're looking for specific info. It's like being able to go a huge library and shout "HEY! Anybody know about wood gas generators?" In my case, I knew that these strange devices were used in England and German in WWII, so I posted in a group called soc.history.war.world-war-ii. And low and behold I had two answers in as many hours, one from Kansas, and the other from the Netherlands.
Lists are a lot like newsgroups except there's no list index, and to subscribe you have to send an exactly worded e-mail message to a computer/program duo called a listserv that automatically administers the list. Once you've subscribed, any message posted to the group address automatically gets zapped out to the e-mailboxes of all the subscribers, including you. Lists tend to be more personal and focused, and less rancorous than newsgroups, so the quality of information is a bit better. They are also more dynamic, meaning they can split in two as the list grows, and may generate spin-off lists that focus on related topics. You can search for lists by name by e-mailing listservs that maintain a catalog of all lists, but there is a much easier way to find list names, and that's to search for them by keyword at this WWW site: http://catalog.com/vivian/interest-group-search.html
The Web is a different animal entirely, requiring different software. But it's very easy to use, and offers many search engines, which are programs that do the looking for you. You can also consult one of the launchpad sites that offer indexes of all the information available on the Web. And that's where I got the soc.history.war......group address, by doing a search using the keywords "German Wehrmacht". Much quicker than wading through 10,000 newsgroup names.
Enough cyberspeak; time for dessert. Bet you thought I was kidding about the trifle.
STRAWBERRY TRIFLE
3 cups angelfood or pound cake, cut into bite sized pieces
1- 10 oz package of frozen sweetened sliced strawberries with juice--thawed
1/2 cup fresh whole strawberries
1 package (3.5 ounce) instant vanilla pudding mix
3 tablespoons blanched sliced almonds
Put 1/3 of cake pieces into a 1 1/2-quart glass bowl. Add 1/3 of the strawberries and 1/3 of the juice over the cake. Repeat with two more layers. Prepare the instant pudding as per package directions and immediately pour over cake and berries. Sprinkle on the almonds. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. Garnish with fresh berries and whipped cream. Eat. Mmmmm.
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