From: "Jorn Barger" 
Newsgroups: news.groups.reviews
Date: 19 Jul 1995 17:15:24 GMT [extended Jan 1996]

Subject: My .newsrc (and welcome to it!)

alt.radio-shack.bill-bixby.dead.dead.dead: 0-131
Originally created to host the Bill Bixby Memorial Haiku Contest, this group still welcomes haiku on any deceased tv stars. I put it at the beginning so I can use the trn-command "g0" to get to it without typing the full name.

comp.ai: 1-29418
AI = artificial intelligence
A battleground between arrogant elitists and populist educators, this year it's been a complete madhouse. Check it out!

alt.conspiracy: 1-104614
99% hokum, 1% you-heard-it-here-first political jaw-droppers. This group's readership follows all the obscure media outlets, where they publish stuff the mainstream won't touch. A must-read!

alt.fan.noam-chomsky: 1-9775
Occasional glimpses of the heroic subject of the documentary "Manufacturing Consent", about the dishonesty of the US media.

rec.arts.books: 1-139131
Very busy. I just scan the subjectlines for my favorite authors. There used to be an in-group clique, but their impact has faded, thankfully, and now anything goes.

alt.hypertext: 1-10573
Mostly overflow from the WWW groups, but occasional debates about hypertext theory.

alt.culture.www: 1-2130
Apparently, there is no WWW-culture yet... but I'm hoping...

alt.culture.usenet: 1-12546
99% kibology and self-promotion, 1% insightful reflections on a very well-developed and subtle set of cultures.

alt.society.neutopia: 1-13437
Doctresses Neutopia and Andrea Chen are likeable utopian loonies. This group has a large contingent of ignorable anti-Libby "MTNs" (Monster Truck Neutopians).

alt.culture.internet: 1-13727
Not quite as insightful as alt.culture.usenet.

comp.ai.games: 1-1785
comp.ai.nat-lang: 1-3593
comp.ai.edu: 1-2483
Artificial intelligence applied to games, natural language, and education. Slim pickings, usually.

comp.theory.info-retrieval: 1-109
Newly revived, moderated. The theory of information retrieval.

chi.media: 1-4277
chi.general: 1-19930
chi.places: 1-2731
chi.politics: 1-365
chi.internet: 1-142
Chicago's netnews scene has taken off in the last year, in terms of numbers.

alt.ernie-pook: 1-372
About one message a month from fans of Chicago cartoonist Lynda Barry.

comp.risks: 1-1017
A topnotch semi-regular digest of computer snafus worldwide-- automatic pilots that don't, automated tellers that do when they oughtn't, etc etc.

news.lists: 1-3484
Here's where you can find the 'arbitron' ratings of newsgroup readership, once a month or less.

alt.fan.kali.astarte.inanna: 1-514
A quiet little group for goddess-worshippers.

alt.memetics: 1-1507
alt.co-evolution: 1-584
Memetics: survival-of-the-fittest for *ideas* ("memes")
Co-evolution: a whole-earth-catalog buzzword about interrelatedness
These quiet groups attract occasional thoughtful essays.

alt.whistleblowing: 1-1380
This group was created as a place for courageous souls to blow the whistle on skulduggery. Journalists are encouraged to keep an eye on it... though there's at most one good whistleblow per month.

clari.feature.joebob: 1-88
Part of the Clarinet pay-for-news feed, Joe Bob Briggs mouths off about cultural idiocies, and reviews drive-in movies.

alt.fan.john-winston: 1-398
A gentle, goofy Internet hero and UFOlogist.

comp.infosystems.interpedia: 1-657
A bold idea to make a free encyclopedia for the Internet, apparently supplanted by the success of the WWWeb.

sci.bio.evolution: 1-4648
A rather good moderated group about evolution theory-- a domain with all sorts of controversial spins on popular topics.

clari.news.briefs: 1-583
Clarinet's front page newsbriefs. Too much OJ, etc.

comp.society.cu-digest: 1-302
CU = Computer Underground
Too much crypto, but occasional interesting bits of sociology

alt.politics.org.batf: 1-11041
alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater: 1-9903
BATF = Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ie-- Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc)
These include some things that alt.conspiracy misses.

alt.activism: 1-103890
misc.activism.progressive: 1-36596
The latter is moderated, and a *wealth* of info for liberal activists. (Check out the McLibel story, about a McDonalds PR disaster the US press won't touch!) The former is wilder, and consequently livelier.

misc.consumers.frugal-living: 1-3467
A great, friendly, busy new group, packed with useful ideas for saving $$$.

comp.sys.mac.digest: 1-2192
Every Mac owner should keep an eye on this moderated group, for very high s/n updates about (especially) new shareware releases.

rec.humor.funny: 1-4747
alt.humor.best-of-usenet: 1-3898
alt.sysadmin.recovery! 1-9430
rec.humor.funny is funny (!). So is ahb-o-u, often. A lot of the funniest stuff in ahb-o-u lately is from a.s.r, which has gotten too busy for me to read directly.

alt.usenet.reposts! 1-189
alt.music.category-freak: 1-219
I've started using a.m.c-f as a general best-of-netnews reposts group, because I found a.u.r to be too uptight about their rules.

rec.arts.books.reviews: 1-1319
Moderated, worth following, book reviews only.

bit.listserv.literary: 1-14905
Similar to rec.arts.books, with a different readership.

rec.arts.ascii: 1-8247
alt.ascii-art: 1-33365
alt.fan.warlord: 1-27003
Ascii art can be very fun, though the tools aren't yet available to let it realize its full potential. a.f.w is sort of a worst-of-ascii-art humor group-- be very cautious about posting there because its culture is very sophisticated and sarcastic towards newbies.

alt.cult-movies: 1-114875
alt.music.alternative.female: 1-23184
Busy groups that appeal to the nonconformist in me. I newgrouped a.m.a.f myself (and am very proud of it :^)

alt.culture.us.1960s:
rec.music.beatles: 1-110293
We just got a.c.u.1960s here, but I have high hopes for it. For now, r.m.b is very active because of the recent new Beatles releases and tv specials.

rec.music.folk: 1-76198
I have several favorite folk artists, and keep half an eye on this group for news bulletins-- tv appearances, cd reissues, etc.

alt.toys.hi-tech: 1-7169
Gizmos for Geex.

clari.tw.top: 1-177
My favorite clari group, 'tech wire' means techno/internet/computer articles.

comp.sys.cbm! 1-46012
I'm not actively following this, but it's amazing to see how vital the Commodore 64 community is, still!

comp.ai.alife: 1-4845
There's some action here, especially shareware artificial life announcements.

news.announce.newgroups: 1-7558
The new newsgroups keep on a-coming. The main ones get announced here.

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html: 1-40981
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.misc: 1-7294
comp.infosystems.www.misc: 1-43301
comp.infosystems.www.announce! 1-10939
Everybody on the WWWeb should be aware of this announce group, where new pages can be advertised. The authoring groups I drop in and out of, because they're so busy.

sci.cognitive: 1-11398
sci.psychology.theory: 1-1350
These groups don't have a lot of depth, but they're very tolerant of new ideas, and so occasionally fun.

alt.usenet.manifestoes: 1-51
An interesting group for promoting kooks, etc. I'm working on a Robot Wisdom Manifesto, myself.

comp.society.futures: 1-2582
alt.soc.ethics: 1-1129
alt.society.futures: 1-4347
alt.society.paradigms: 1-690
alt.society.resistance: 1-4351
alt.society.revolution: 1-13977
Occasional interesting idealists.

alt.religion.sexuality: 1-9631
alt.politics.sex: 1-9429
Serious talk about sex in society.

alt.tv.sctv: 1-2651
alt.movies.scorsese! 1-2175
alt.tv.tv-nation: 1-3930
alt.music.ween: 1-2112
alt.movies.kubrick: 1-7023
alt.fan.elvis-costello: 1-1086
These fan groups all offer very interesting tidbits from time to time. I've unsubscribed Scorsese until after I've seen Casino...

soc.religion.gnosis: 1-1493
An odd little moderated group about gnosticism, with some very thoughtful contributors.

comp.ai.doc-analysis.misc: 1-76
A specialty group about AI and word-processing (more or less).

comp.human-factors: 1-15892
bionet.info-theory: 1-2604
I hesitate to mention these, because they don't need more noise. But they offer many interesting messages for specialists.

j                                                the robot wisdom pages
jorn@mcs.com                                   http://www.mcs.net/~jorn/

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