From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #49 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, February 10 1999 Volume 08 : Number 049 Today's Subjects: ----------------- purple & triangles (long & no RH) [Griffith Davies ] Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) [Capuchin ] Re: Thank you for the music [Capuchin ] Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) [Capuchin ] A post of negativity [Natalie Jacobs ] Re: Economics and geekstuff. [Mary Huey ] Coming Soon: "The Six Interns of Henry VIII" ["JH3" ] RE: Coming Soon: "The Six Interns of Henry VIII" ["Chaney, Dolph L" ] Re: Economics and geekstuff. [Mark_Gloster@3com.com] Re: Economics and geekstuff. [Tom Clark ] Re: Fegbooks [Joel Mullins ] Re: Economics and geekstuff. [Christopher Gross ] Killer Apps: Radio [amadain ] Math. Ignore. (isn't that what TV tells you?) [Capuchin ] Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) [amadain ] Re: Killer Apps: Radio [amadain ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 09:38:30 -0800 (PST) From: Griffith Davies Subject: purple & triangles (long & no RH) On the news this morning, I saw a story about how Jerry Fallwell is sending out a warning to parents that one of the Teletubbies, Tinky Winky, is gay. His reasons are that TW is purple, carries a purse, speaks with a male voice, and that the symbol sprouting out of his/her head is an upside-down triangle - which is some sort of gay/lesbian symbol. This reminds me of the time I was a wannabe engineer. I was pursuing a degree in electronic engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (about a million years ago). One of the classes I had was Calculus IV. The professor was one of those physics nuts who you when you saw him walking across the campus you knew he wasn't thinking about getting some groceries on the way home, he was thinking about his vector across campus. One day, he was drawing a lovely x-y-z axis plot on the chalk board. To give his drawing some depth and dimension, often used different color chalk. As he wrote the equation on the board with white chalk, he stopped mid-equation grabbed a purple piece of chalk drew a lambda, and then continued writing with the white chalk. When finished, he turned to the class and said that the lambda is a symbol used by the homosexuals, and that he chose purple "...well, because it is a gay color". We were pretty shocked by this - it is a heavy thing to drop on Calculus students before 8:00am. One of the students in the front of the class pointed to the professor and said, "You're wearing a purple shirt." Much to his amazement and embarrassment, the instructor looked down and realized his shirt was a lovely shade of purple. He dropped to his seat, hands covering his face. He laughed and said that's what he gets for making fun of other people. I have since dropped the engineering path and have never taken another calculus class. sorry about the length.... griffith _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 09:50:24 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Griffith Davies wrote: > On the news this morning, I saw a story about how Jerry Fallwell is > sending out a warning to parents that one of the Teletubbies, Tinky > Winky, is gay. His reasons are that TW is purple, carries a purse, > speaks with a male voice, and that the symbol sprouting out of his/her > head is an upside-down triangle - which is some sort of gay/lesbian > symbol. Wow. I mean... except for the triangle on my head, that sounds like me. My triangle isn't inverted. > This reminds me of the time I was a wannabe engineer. I was pursuing > a degree in electronic engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (about > a million years ago). One of the classes I had was Calculus IV. The > professor was one of those physics nuts who you when you saw him > walking across the campus you knew he wasn't thinking about getting > some groceries on the way home, he was thinking about his vector > across campus. That's the problem with CalcIV (at least what was CalcIV when/where I took it). Too many fucking physicists and physical chemists. > One day, he was drawing a lovely x-y-z axis plot on > the chalk board. To give his drawing some depth and dimension, often > used different color chalk. As he wrote the equation on the board > with white chalk, he stopped mid-equation grabbed a purple piece of > chalk drew a lambda, and then continued writing with the white chalk. > When finished, he turned to the class and said that the lambda is a > symbol used by the homosexuals, and that he chose purple "...well, > because it is a gay color". Dear lord. I hate old people. > We were pretty shocked by this - it is a > heavy thing to drop on Calculus students before 8:00am. Why the hell are math classes so early in the morning? This is the number one reason for my poor grades in college. I don't understand that whole "attendance matters" thing. > One of the > students in the front of the class pointed to the professor and said, > "You're wearing a purple shirt." Much to his amazement and > embarrassment, the instructor looked down and realized his shirt was a > lovely shade of purple. See, he should have just smiled and nodded. That would have been the only mildly saving thing he could have done. > He dropped to his seat, hands covering his > face. He laughed and said that's what he gets for making fun of other > people. Well, that IS what he gets for making fun of other people. Someone makes a fool of him. Hopefully he was embarrassed for the right reason (making stupid assumptions... not giving off a "gay" image). > I have since dropped the engineering path and have never taken another > calculus class. Is there calculus after CalcIV? I didn't have any and I was a math major. > sorry about the length.... Yeah! Posts around here are averaging eight or ten K. You should have fleshed the story out a little. J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 09:55:29 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Thank you for the music On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, James Dignan wrote: > "I know the felt of Judas" This is amazing, James. I loved it. Damn. I wish I could write like that. Those images and allusions and transitions blew me away. Fun and introspective. Just a big wow. OK, so it's Dolph's CD and your tape for the win. > PS - who came up with that line anyway? I believe that was our good friend Vivien. And to think, if she spoke french, this might not have happened. Thanks for not speaking french, Viv. (Does anyone else really dig the way VIV looks in print? It's kind of Roman and geometric. It's three letters, but really only two. It's life, but it's IV, too. It's nine, but it's not IX. It's symmetrical. It's pushing down the two sides of I. Ok, it's just me.) Je. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 09:56:31 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) Sorry... that was meant for Griffith alone. No big deal, I guess. - --J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 13:04:24 -0500 From: Natalie Jacobs Subject: A post of negativity >Thanks for the suggestions! Someone on the TC list is a published author >and one of many things she wrote for the list was a series of short stories >based on Pratchett's style. It was so cool I bought one (_Guards! Guards!_), >but haven't read it yet. I'll move it to the top of the pile now. Ack... I hate Terry Pratchett so goddamn much... there's only so much of that smirky, clever-clever shtick I can stand. At least Douglas Adams is funny. Pratchett is on my hit-list of Inexplicably Popular Authors that also includes Anne Rice and Piers Anthony. Buncha useless hacks... *grumble grumble* >PS The greatest personality of the 20th century is of course de >Selby, who would have swept the board if he hadn't turned into a >bicycle :) Well, of course! n., who has just fallen instantly in love with a faculty candidate ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 13:19:01 -0500 (EST) From: Mary Huey Subject: Re: Economics and geekstuff. And then there are the people who produce stuff that other people _would_ want to buy (if only they knew of the products' existence, or if only they could get hold of the product -- like some of the stuff on eBay or the "special orders" that never come through)... - -mary ************************************************************************ You can't coat a wolf in chocolate because the wolf already has its own fur. --3 Mustaphas 3 ************************************************************************ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 12:29:05 -0600 From: "JH3" Subject: Coming Soon: "The Six Interns of Henry VIII" This from the last page of the latest issue of MOJO: "After we staged 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth,' people said nobody could put on a show that big again. But the sequel I'm doing now, 'Return to the Centre of the Earth,' will be as extravagant and over the top as before - and with better monsters!" - Rick Wakeman Heh. - -JH3 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 13:31:35 -0500 From: "Chaney, Dolph L" Subject: RE: Coming Soon: "The Six Interns of Henry VIII" > -----Original Message----- > From: JH3 [SMTP:jh3@netins.net] > Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 1999 1:29 PM > To: Fegs Over Easy > Subject: Coming Soon: "The Six Interns of Henry VIII" > > This from the last page of the latest issue of MOJO: > > "After we staged 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth,' people said nobody > could put on a show that big again. But the sequel I'm doing now, 'Return > to > the Centre of the Earth,' will be as extravagant and over the top as > before - and with better monsters!" - Rick Wakeman > [] Oh -- that must mean Trevor Rabin's playing with him... Dolph sending mail unhappily through Microsoft Outhouse ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 10:30:36 -0800 From: Mark_Gloster@3com.com Subject: Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) We old people may never forgive you. We might forget though. - -that old guy who can't remember his name who sometimes goes by the name somethingorotherboy but can't remember for the life of him what he was just now talking about. Capuchin on 02/10/99 09:56:31 AM Please respond to Capuchin To: Nerdy Groovers cc: (Mark Gloster/HQ/3Com) Subject: Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) Sorry... that was meant for Griffith alone. No big deal, I guess. - --J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 12:29:43 -0600 From: "Gregory S. Shell" Subject: Re: Economics and geekstuff. Greetings Fellow Biodegradables, Aren't economists people who study working systems to determine if they will work in theory? I am not sure where I heard that, but it does fit. Regards, SSC ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 10:43:15 -0800 From: Mark_Gloster@3com.com Subject: Re: Economics and geekstuff. Economist is the only vocation where one can be incorrect 100% of the time and still retain his position. I didn't make that up, but it works. I suppose that after a while a politician loses his job. Happies, - -Mg "Gregory S. Shell" on 02/10/99 10:29:43 AM Please respond to "Gregory S. Shell" To: fegmaniax@smoe.org cc: (Mark Gloster/HQ/3Com) Subject: Re: Economics and geekstuff. Greetings Fellow Biodegradables, Aren't economists people who study working systems to determine if they will work in theory? I am not sure where I heard that, but it does fit. Regards, SSC ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 10:41:51 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Economics and geekstuff. On 2/10/99 9:37 AM, Capuchin wrote: > >On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Michael R Godwin wrote: > >> My understanding of the Microsoft phenomenon is that Gates made one really >> smart move, which was to agree to license MS-DOS to any manufacturer who >> wanted it. > >That's not entirely accurate. > >IBM was in a pinch. They needed a personal computer to market because >they were THE COMPANY and there was a growing demand for personal >computers (the PET was doing well and the first Apple home computers were >gaining fast). They didn't have time to engineer one from the ground up, >so one fellow at the company put together a personal computer made from >off-the-shelf parts. IBM wrote the bios and tried to license the OS that >was used in their prototype boxes. They couldn't do it (because of a very >odd interaction between some IBM guys and a software fellow's wife, if I >recall correctly). Actually, the IBM guys flew out to meet with Gary Kildall at his small company, Digital Research, in Monterey, CA. Gary had written the first personal computer operating system, called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers), and IBM wanted to license it for their new PC. Why? Because Bill Gates didn't want to be in the OS business, so he sent them to Gary in the first place. Well, things in Monterey were - and are - a lot different than in Armonk, NY. Even though Gary knew they were coming, he decided to go out flying that day. When the suits showed up at DRI, Gary's wife balked at signing the NDA and essentially pissed IBM off. IBM then went back to Gates for an OS, who then ran out and bought Seattle Computings' QDOS, a 6 week hack CP/M clone. >> Apple knew that their product was better, and they believed >> that they could keep people buying their own software+hardware package by >> refusing to license the software. This was a bad mistake, because all the >> new companies who came in during the 80s hardware boom opted for MS-DOS, >> and installed it on ever-cheaper hardware. This one error by Apple >> established Microsoft as the biggest company in PC software. > >I don't think this is true at all. I kind of feel they had different >markets from the start. Apple was aiming for homes and schools (get 'em >while they're young!) and IBM (not Microsoft) was aiming for programmers >and engineers and accountants at work who want to work from home, too. >Business software was developed first and better. Visicalc made the >Apple ][, but somehow wasn't enough. > Apple tried desperately in those days to sell into the corporate arena. Remember the Apple III? Remember the Lisa? The main problem was they were trying to sell into a market that was completely dominated by IBM. Corporate America had had a beautiful relationship with Big Blue for decades already. Why should they deal with these flaky California guys - who had basically no corporate sales department by comparison - when they could buy their mainframes, minis, and PC's from the same rep? Apple was doomed from the start. It wasn't until the Macintosh enabled in-house publishing that Apple started fulfilling huge corporate orders. Oh yeah, funny line in yesterday's NY Times. In a story about Microsoft's restructuring from application groups to technology groups, the author states that after years of concentrating on engineering, Microsoft is now concentrating in marketing! Hello? - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 13:19:30 -0800 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: Fegbooks > Talking Anthony Burgess (which we were, sort of), he is much more than > just the author of Clockwork Orange. His Keats novel 'Abba Abba' is great; > his Shakespeare in love novel 'Nothing like the sun' is pretty good; the > Enderby books are extremely funny; and I really enjoyed the two volumes of > memoirs that I read (Little Wilson and Big God and the other one). But he > wrote a lot of books and some of the other stuff is less good. The Wanting Seed is pretty good too. - --Joel ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:39:59 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Economics and geekstuff. Back when Milli Vanilli ruled the charts and Mikhail Gorbachev ruled the USSR, one of my Political Science professors told us this joke about economists: A large private university raises tuition by 15% and sends its faculty on a Caribbean cruise. Halfway through the cruise the ship strikes a freak semitropical iceberg and sinks. Three professors, a phsyicist, a chemist, and an economist, escape in a lifeboat and wash up on a tiny desert island devoid of edible plants and animals. Soon they become hungry. They find a box of canned food in their lifeboat, but no can opener or other tools. "Okay," says the physicist, after lengthy calculations drawn in the sand. "I think we can use the lifeboat oars to construct a levering mechanism that will crush the cans open." "No, no, no," says the chemist, who has done his own calculations further down the beach. "Totally impractical. Instead, I suggest we use seawater and the sealant from our lifeboat to make a corrosive that will open the seams in the cans." "Fah!" replies the economist. "You two are both going about this completely wrong." He draws himself up into full lecturing stance and raises one finger. "First, assume a can opener...." - --Chris PS: Doesn't academic humor just rule? ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:45:16 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Capuchin wrote: > Is there calculus after CalcIV? I didn't have any and I was a math major. how are you counting? the places i've been (not a huge sample) the first two semesters of calculus are the same curriculum as the two calculus AP tests; the first is the basics and the second is a bunch of integration tricks. third semester is multivariable, and then the people taking math for practical reasons are shunted over to linear algebra next, while the math majors end up seeing one or two semesters of the theoretical underpinnings. i guess you'd stick complex analysis in there somewhere, but i sort of slept through my class on it. a ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:17:05 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: Economics and geekstuff. >Anyway, I've been thinking about the Killer App for other technologies. >Those that came before the term itself. I think I've concluded that >Milton Berle was television's Killer App. I'm wondering what might have >been that for radio. What single program made people think they had to >rush out and buy a radio? Walter Winchell. Absolutely no doubt about it. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:23:50 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Killer Apps: Radio >>Anyway, I've been thinking about the Killer App for other technologies. >>Those that came before the term itself. I think I've concluded that >>Milton Berle was television's Killer App. I'm wondering what might have >>been that for radio. What single program made people think they had to >>rush out and buy a radio? > >Walter Winchell. Absolutely no doubt about it. Addendum: Also FDR's "Fireside Chats". Definitely sold a lot of sets. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 12:05:01 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Math. Ignore. (isn't that what TV tells you?) Stupid math stuff that should probably go offlist. Mostly about academics. On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Aaron Mandel wrote: > > Is there calculus after CalcIV? I didn't have any and I was a math major. > how are you counting? the places i've been (not a huge sample) the first > two semesters of calculus are the same curriculum as the two calculus AP > tests; the first is the basics and the second is a bunch of integration > tricks. Mine went like this: Calc I: Limit theory. Differentiation in depth. Calc II: Numerical estimation garbage (trapezoidal rule and stuff). Hardcore integration. Calc III: Infinite series in depth. Convergence, divergence, and alternating. The whole shebang. Calc IV: Multivariable calculus. (required across the board, but mostly physics people and physical chemists... there were a lot of chemists at my school) For the mathematicians, Calc IV was just another special case and you could mostly figure it out. That stuff on vector clouds and fields was pretty fucked up, though. > third semester is multivariable, and then the people taking math > for practical reasons are shunted over to linear algebra next, while the > math majors end up seeing one or two semesters of the theoretical > underpinnings. Well, first and foremost, note that my school had three quarters per year and not semesters. OK, so if you wanted to get out of there in four years, you had to finish all of your calculus and at least one or two upper division courses by the end of your second year. (If you wanted to get out of there in less, like me with no money, you have to do some tricks.) Oh yeah... my linear algebra class completely screwed all of those practical people that were taking it for something else. Dr. Clemens (gods bless him... my advisor and friend) would never do anything in any particular dimension. Everything was N all the time. N-space with N coordinates. Hey, if N is two or three, you can visualize it, too! But that was not part of the curriculum. Most of the CS guys liked it... particularly crypto nuts. > i guess you'd stick complex analysis in there somewhere, but i sort of > slept through my class on it. Analysis is dumb and boring. You could basically either go Algebra, Analysis or Probability at my school. Analysis and probability were for number crunchers that would rather get an answer than grok a system. All the fun people did algebra. Hey, what's purple and commutes? An abelian grape! Ugh. Je. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 12:06:07 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Killer Apps: Radio On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, amadain wrote: > >>Anyway, I've been thinking about the Killer App for other technologies. > >>Those that came before the term itself. I think I've concluded that > >>Milton Berle was television's Killer App. I'm wondering what might have > >>been that for radio. What single program made people think they had to > >>rush out and buy a radio? > >Walter Winchell. Absolutely no doubt about it. > Addendum: > Also FDR's "Fireside Chats". Definitely sold a lot of sets. Good one. I think it's hard to tell which is which. I'll have to check some timelines. Brilliant. Thanks! How about other technologies? Je. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:34:53 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: purple & triangles (long & no RH) >On the news this morning, I saw a story about how Jerry Fallwell is >sending out a warning to parents that one of the Teletubbies, Tinky >Winky, is gay. Oh dear. First Bert & Ernie, now a Teletubby. Who next, Sifl & Ollie? I mean really, what is WITH all these gay puppets anyway? We must put a stop to all this homosexual puppetry ASAP. It's a danger to all of us! Kids might think it's OK to be a gay puppet! Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 15:05:55 EST From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: death of the record companies In a message dated 99-02-09 20:08:08 EST, you write: << But it also worries me in the sense that culture continues to become more and more disposable. Once a work of art goes from being a collectible artifact that you have to pay for to mere software that you can have for nothing, people tend to lose respect for it, and what it took to create it. And then they lose respect for the people who create it, and finally for the quality of the work itself. And finally you reach the point nobody wants to actually *do* it. But maybe that's just me. Like I say, I'm a pessimist. >> As is often the case these dyas, I'm currently listening to the CD of the Beach Boys "SMiLE" that I burned from mp3->AIFF files which I downloaded for free from the internet. For the cost of a pretty readily disposable CD-R, I have in my possession what I consider to be a work of art. I have the chemically imbalanced blood, sweat and tears of Brian Wilson to make me grin, sigh, sing, and tap my steering wheel on the way to work. I definitely have infinitely more respect for this item than I would for the originial master tapes of some yet-unreleased Mariah Carey album (which would certainly be a rare and, if kidnapped, highly ransomable item . . . hmmmm . . . ). Then again, maybe my values are different from someone 1/2 my age who's been hooked into the internet since junior high. Maybe this younger generation *does* see everything as disposable. This potential outlook is certainly reinforced by a world in which everything is designed to be overtly or basically disposable (by not being fixable, for instance). On the other hand, these kida were raised in the shadow of the threat of nuclear war and the reality of AIDS, plus an ever-expanding awareness of the fragility of the planet (global warming, etc.). So, maybe these things balance out. It's gotta be confusing, that's for sure! But I'm not too concerned about the future of art. It'll mutate greatly in the near future, I'm sure, but it won't be totally disregarded. - -------Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 12:16:24 -0800 (PST) From: VIV LYON Subject: Fegtopia Dear fegs- Being dissatisfied with a cruddy work situation, and knowing her friend Vivien was in much the same boat, Natalie had this idea. "Maybe we should start a commune," she said. "That's not a half-bad idea. Let's all go to New Zealand and start a feg colony in James Dignan's backyard," Vivien responded. "I've always wanted to go to New Zealand. What I've seen of it on "Xena" looks really pretty. And there's a zillion great bands there. I think that's a perfect place for a commune. Do you think James has a big backyard?" Gnat inquired. Well, we now know he at least has a shed. With this knowledge, I feel prepared to make preliminary role-assignments for the great Feg Experiment. Natalie will be Officer in Charge of Women`s Health and Tin Foil Creatures. Vivien will be the lexicographer. Eddie can organize the masses and Jeme can criticise him and keep him in line. Bayard can be the frog-breeder. James can sit in a rocking chair and order us about at his whim (it is, after all, his backyard). Dlang will come calling every Sunday to regale us with nonsense while Eb roasts.... everything, including some food for us to eat. The Quail shall be the Post-Modern Librarian. Michael Wolfe will make sure everyone gets paid an equitable wage and Joel will make sure they haven't been loafing. Susan will be the Administrator of Positive and Negative Reinforcement. Tracy will be the Minister of Toast. Woj can be the benign dictator. Mark Gloster will be the bestower of happies, while Dolph shall simply dolph. Randi (in satiny ballgown) we will crown Miss Feggy, with a globe of frogs and holding a bouquet of squid. Mike Runion shall be known as the Cone Curator. The Cone Museum will be kept in a special part of James's backyard, surrounded by elaborate security devices. Brewer Tom will supply us with our liquid refreshment and firewood. Every so often, Martin Phillipps and Lucy Lawless will come round for tea and Vegemite, and all will be well. And once a year, one very special day, Robyn will come visit us, as though ministering to a colony of lepers. I suppose we should let the rest of you decide what niche you'd like to fill. Oh yeah, and... Mr. Dignan? Can we come over? Sincerely, Natalie and Vivien ps- Natalie would like to request that her cat Aleister, The Great Beast, be our mascot, but she realizes she may be presuming too much. _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:52:01 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: Killer Apps: Radio >> >Walter Winchell. Absolutely no doubt about it. >> Addendum: >> Also FDR's "Fireside Chats". Definitely sold a lot of sets. > >Good one. I think it's hard to tell which is which. I'll have to check >some timelines. Well, Winchell was definitely first. The "Fireside Chats" came later, but they probably did induce the few remaining people who weren't wired into radio to get one. You know, it's really difficult to describe the influence that this one man had. I don't think there is any one person today that has that much influence on public opinion and so much hand in various media. I mean, you could even say he was a killer app for newspapers at the time as well, since there were thousands of people who bought newspapers solely to read Winchell's column. He was maybe the only journalist who had enough power to successfully take on William Randolph Hearst. That's saying something. The Winchell biography by Neal Gabler is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the history of media, or the history of the period. Incidentally, much of the reason (initially) the US got so gung-ho behind WWII is because Winchell made it a personal cause. He was making fun/warning about Hitler long before anyone else in the media was taking Hitler seriously. Unfortunately, he also got behind McCarthy, which was part of his downfall- that, and the rise of television. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #49 ******************************