BA stands for Bay Area which is there solely for the purpose of discussing events in the San Francisco Bay Area. If you'd like to find out where the events are happening, check out ba.dance , ba.food , or ba.singles to name just a few. Comp stands for computer and is the place to turn for your computer-related discussions. You can find groups devoted to hardware, software, developers, languages, the works. Mac users might want to check out groups in the comp.sys.mac hierarchy like comp.sys.mac.apps or comp.sys.mac.wanted .
News stands for just that, news .
It's a good place to go if you need help with something related to Usenet News. New users should visit the group news.newusers.questions and hang around there for a few days. Rec stands for recreation . The recreation hierarchy of newsgroups covers all sorts of leisurely activities from movies to ham radio operation. Sending email to a friend in another part of the world is as easy as sending email to a coworker at the next desk in your office.