Internet Beat
by Donald Daugherty

The whole universe is almost at their fingertips

I do take a break from time to time from the computer, though it's hard to tell some days! I went to see ID4 (Independence Day), and really enjoyed the movie. I got home and started wondering about UFO newsgroups (in the Internet), so I checked and found a couple where people were posting questions, theories, etc. to the group, and I even ventured an opinion myself.

After that, I used my favorite search engines to find information on Area 51 (top secret Air Force facility) and of course the information that I came up with was all speculative and based on opinions like mine. But there were some interesting photos which I'm sure that anyone interested in UFO's would already be familiar with, but for those not, they are supposed photos of aliens recovered from a "crash of a UFO" in near Roswell New Mexico, somewhere around 1947. I'm still a little skeptical about the whole Roswell business, a lot of questions. In any event, this information is just to show you that you really can find information about almost anything you want to on the Internet.

I looked one evening for some information relating to Astronomy, another of my interests, and found some wonderful pictures of various planets, and solar systems taken by the Hubble telescope and other sources, beautiful pictures. I can't really imagine not taking advantage of what the Internet can offer, especially to students. The whole universe is almost at their fingertips!

It won't take the place of doing research in other ways, such as looking up information in books, at least not completely yet, but is a great supplement to other educational resources. I wish I had access when I was in school.

I then ventured into the IRC or Inter Relay Chat area, where I began "chatting" with several other people at the same time, mostly it was a lot of nonsense coming from some very immature individuals using pretty foul language, a potential source of problems for some people with younger children. I am not bothered by it, so I hung in there and talked (when I say talked, I mean typed) to someone in Pennsylvania for a few minutes, mostly comparing the weather there and here, it's cooler there.

There was the inevitable call for information checks, these consist mostly of age/sex/location, some people are meeting each other on the net and chatting regularly, which can be a good thing as long as you are careful only to give as much information about yourself as you feel comfortable giving. There are a lot of people of all ages and backgrounds out there and some not so nice people out there too, just like in any other aspect of life, so have fun but be careful.

I invite you once again to check out my web page, there are some sites on the "fun page" section that I think are pretty interesting, such as the SciFiChannel, the Discovery Channel, and others. Guess I better go do some work around the house or else! Take care and see you later.


Donald Daugherty
daugh@connecti.com
URL;http://www.connecti.com/~daugh

Donald Daugherty is a member of the Seguin Internet Club and a regular contributor to the Internet Beat column.


For its September 14 meeting, the Seguin Internet Club needs a meeting facility with a phone line available for accessing the Internet from 10 am to 1 pm.; the phone line can be a metro number or a local number; the facility would be for about thirty members.

Once again, the meeting will be an unstructured opportunity for members (young students, home and commercial users), to exchange information, discuss problems and ask or answer questions from fellow members.

Members are asked to share helpful hints and favorite sites. Hopefully, with the online capability, the answer to questions can be demonstrated readily on-line.

Last Thursday, Matt McDaniel offered to club members, a structured on-line demonstration of IRC Internet Relay Chat at Century 21 D & D.

To offer ideas for the club or the column, contact Gloria Rivera, 303-4764, riverag@connecti.com; or Jerry Weers, 303-0818, weersjt@texas.net; or Alton Hierholzer, 303-9260, altonh@connecti.com

Next week: Internet questions answered.