From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #217 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, June 23 1999 Volume 08 : Number 217 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Platform warpages [Mark_Gloster@3com.com] Re: Revenge of the Platform Wars (boring to non-geeks) [ultraconformist@m] Back online ["Sedgwick, Gary" ] i never realized this before... [**twofangs** {randi} ] small addendum [ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com] JFS news from ICE [steve ] Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask [steve ] spock! [dwdudic@erols.com (David W. Dudich)] Re: i never realized this before... [four episode lesbian ] Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 [four episode lesbian ] Pirates=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=8a?= [Tom Clark ] Re: Salsa sauce [Tom Clark ] Re: Kristen Hersh news [digja611@student.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] negativ energy [Capitalism Blows ] Re: chai tea pronunsciation [Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer ] Re: Back online [ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com] Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 [Capuchin ] Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 [ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com] Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 [ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com] Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 [Capuchin ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 17:43:51 -0700 From: Mark_Gloster@3com.com Subject: Re: Platform warpages >recommend any other books on the subject, One other idea is to talk to a current or former employee of Apple. You see, we have an opinion on everything and that opinion is something to which everyone else is entitled. I didn't see the flick. I have trouble believing that Jobs was depicted as foaming and crazy as he (at least) used to be. I also can't fathom that unless Bill Gates was played by Emperor Tarkin (sp?) that he was depicted with the proper dash of evil. Apple couldn't have happened without Steve Wozniak, either, and that fact seems to get overlooked. Woz seems like a great guy to me. Demolition Soapbox Derby: Not very humble opinions expressed in a not very humble manner: My love for Apple's computers is possibly oversimplified by persons who just don't get it. Here's the deal. I have used and owned UNIX boxes, DOS/Windows boxes, and Macs. I have been employed since high school working on and with computers. (That is about five billion of your earth years.) I have done sys admin on all of them. The reason I use Macs and buy them with my own money is not that I have a fear of technology, rather that I want access to that technology without having to spend an inordinate amount of my precious time doing all the exact right things and reading zillions of manuals just to try to make something artistic happen. The Mac, still, mostly gets out of the way so I can create. The new ones are much faster than anything else out there for some of the things for which I use a computer. I'm going to go home now to play with my Mac and think of clever taunts for Jeme when he gets here. Maybe if I quote integer spec marks mac heads can start to get some respect. "Zero-knowledge system?" Sounds like something for sharkboy. Happies, - -Sharkboy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 20:01:58 -0600 From: ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com Subject: Re: Revenge of the Platform Wars (boring to non-geeks) >that a Mac is somehow magically easier is also full of shit. It's just >what people perceive when going into the purchase. I know, I know. You were bitching about the pitching. I was bitching about the pitching too, but actually the real substance of my bitch was the way some Windows users talk to me even though they are far less computer-savvy in a general sense than I. This is a direct result of Apple's advertising, which has been very effective. As far as I'm concerned, all things being equal a Unix wiz has earned the right to act like that around me. Some goof who can't even figure out how to change the settings in their web-browser does not. Actually those goofs are almost the only kind of people that cop serious attitude with me about this- anyone who knows anything much knows the following: >The fact is that every OS has its own idiosynchracies and obfuscated >command structure and file structure that makes it weird and difficult and >cumbersome. Yup. This OS is mainly easier for me to use than anything else because I've been using Macs for 10 years and I understand the twists and turns pretty well. I think of OSes as languages actually. Jasper speaks French, which I speak fairly well, tho far from perfectly. Phred and Max (my SO's computers) speak Spanish (Win '95), which I know a little of, and in addition Phred can speak German (DOS), of which I know approximately 4 or 5 words. That's how I conceive of it. I could probably come up with something better if people named Susan had any imagination :). >PS. the chip ID thingie would have to exploited by software. If you're >carefully watching every packet coming out of your machine, nobody's going >to sneak an ID out of you. Does anyone really want to have to do that? Does the average user even know how? Cripes. >can be tracked anyway. Soon enough, static IP will be the norm... then >you'll need something like Zero Knowledge Systems if you want to think you >have privacy. Oh man, I've already been really freakin' about this. Thanks for making me worry harder :). Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 16:06:08 +0100 From: "Sedgwick, Gary" Subject: Back online Hi everyone, Just a quick note to let you know that I'm back on e-mail now, and with a new job, so please update your address books if you have my old riskcare address in it. Ferris - I have that recording I made of the BBC evening session - mail me so I can send it to you if you still need it! Bayard - What's the current situation with Fish Gloss / Glass Flesh? And thanks to everyone who wished me luck after being made redundant! Guess it's gonna take a while to catch up on things. Anyone fancy summing up the last 3 months in a few lines? Gary (Sedgwick) PS Fly should be releasing their first 'proper' album very soon... .:. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 01:50:56 -0400 From: **twofangs** {randi} Subject: i never realized this before... Am I the only one who didn't notice until _*right now*_ that Matthew Seligman played bass on Tori Amos's "Little Earthquakes" album? Well -- he only plays on "China" -- one out of twelve tracks....thus 0.0833333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333% If you consider he only played bass...well... I won't take it that far ;-} There is no polite way of saying this, but those who've played with Robyn H. have r r r r e e e e a a a a l l l l y y y y been around ;-} Though, at least Matthew played with Alex Chilton & The Local Heroes: while Kimberly surfed with 'Katrina and the Waves' {may I add *y u c k* here for emphasis} fading back to yesterday before *sharkboy* comes, Randi Toronto, Ontario, Canada *what scares you most will set you free* -- Robyn H. *the longer you hide...the more you deny* -- Neil Finn ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 16:06:08 +0100 From: "Sedgwick, Gary" Subject: Back online Hi everyone, Just a quick note to let you know that I'm back on e-mail now, and with a new job, so please update your address books if you have my old riskcare address in it. Ferris - I have that recording I made of the BBC evening session - mail me so I can send it to you if you still need it! Bayard - What's the current situation with Fish Gloss / Glass Flesh? And thanks to everyone who wished me luck after being made redundant! Guess it's gonna take a while to catch up on things. Anyone fancy summing up the last 3 months in a few lines? Gary (Sedgwick) PS Fly should be releasing their first 'proper' album very soon... .:. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 20:42:24 -0600 From: ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com Subject: small addendum Yes, I know it's tacky to follow up your own posts, but I realized I'd screwed up a bit here. >This OS is mainly easier for me to use than anything else because I've been >using Macs for 10 years Should read: owned them for 10 years. I used them in high school as well In grade school I had a spiffing TI99/4A, but that's another long story. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 21:23:27 -0500 From: steve Subject: JFS news from ICE July ICE, page 11: "As with 1996's Moss Elixir/Mossy Liquor albums, Hitchcock plans to release the outtakes from Jewels For Sophia as its own entity in the fall." - - Steve _______________ We're all Jesus, Buddha, and the Wizard of Oz! - Andy Partridge ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 21:23:17 -0500 From: steve Subject: Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask Another Fegbook? - ----- FLYBOY ACTION FIGURE COMES WITH GASMASK by Jim Munroe - Avon Spike, November 1999, $12.50. Ryan Slint can turn into a fly. Cassandra, a waitress at a greasy-spoon, can make things disappear. They were made for each other...and to fight crime! Slackers by day, superheroes by night, Ryan and Cassandra team up to fall in love, drink coffee, and conquer social injustice in this hysterical novel, which offers a fresh and honest perspective on love, sex, aliens, punk rock, Sailor Moon, and modern-day superheroes. - ------ Yes, the above is the kind of thing that appears in book catalogs. And there is evidently a new kind of fiction, or at least a new buzzword - "impossiblist fiction," of which another practitioner is Christopher Moore, author of PRACTICAL DEMONKEEPING (which was optioned by Disney before it was ever published). The target audience is also supposed to include fans of Nick Hornby's HIGH FIDELITY (show of hands?). - - Steve _____________________ "Oh no! You accuse me of writing the Ewok National Anthem!" Partridge yelps, in obvious distress. "Please, no! I've had a lot of people accuse that track of being very Arabic; but it's very pagan, very English. There's a slight dromedary whiff about the percussion, admittedly; but it goes no further east than Norwich. And no Ewoks were involved." - - Andy Partridge, commenting on a description of "Greenman". ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 02:01:59 GMT From: dwdudic@erols.com (David W. Dudich) Subject: spock! On Mon, 14 Jun 1999 13:51:26 -0400 (EDT), you wrote: > > >I have a CD that sports Leonard Nimoy singing "The Ballad of Bilbo >Baggins". The mind boggles, does it not? Although I've heard Nimoy >is actually pretty hip to new music and a reasonably good guy, this >song not only makes Leonard look foolish, it also reduces LOTR to >some sub-Saturday AM cartoon silliness. Astoundingly poor judgment. >Or is it "judgement"? Astoundingly bad spelling. well, it is something...but nothing compared to Shatners' "the transformed man". the album will leave you speechless. like the disco remix of that song he did w/ Ben Folds recently... -luther ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 22:39:10 -0400 From: four episode lesbian Subject: Re: i never realized this before... MC 900 Ft **twofangs** {randi} rapped: >Am I the only one who didn't notice until _*right now*_ that Matthew >Seligman played bass on Tori Amos's "Little Earthquakes" album? proabably. i think we've talked about this before (probably during one of the six degrees threads). way back when, i asked tori about this after a show she did at the iron horse in northampton, ma in 1992. i don't recall the exact answer, but it was something along the lines of "*shrug* he was around and played good." unlike her later records, she doesn't appear to have had much to do with selecting the session musicians. >while Kimberly surfed with 'Katrina and the Waves' {may I add *y u c >k* here for emphasis} you may, but don't base your opinion of the waves only on "walking on sunshine" or that awful reunion-or-whatever-it-was record. when not being mass-marketed, they can be a perfectly decent catchy pop band. anyone ever hear the really early waves stuff? i.e., the waves before robyn swiped kimberley away to fill out the soft boys? also, anyone know what morris and andy are up to these days? woj n.p. jewels for sophia (still absorbing...) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 22:51:00 -0400 From: four episode lesbian Subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 MC 900 Ft Capuchin rapped: >What's astounding is that people think there's STILL money in software. there is if you can convince some large enough segment of users into believing that they need to buy support and/or maintenance from you. >Free Software is good for you. if you don't mind rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands covered in 1's and 0's, sure. in the land of big companies and corporations, they're deathly afraid of free software because of the aforementioned support issue. they have been so deftly screwed by the morass of hardware and software and the paradigm tides (centralize! decentralize! networkize!) that they're scared shitless of a package which doesn't come with a guarantee that someone will make it work when the littlest thing goes wrong. example: samba (turn your unix box into a network drive!) was just intalled on our rs/6000s to replace whatever product ibm was hawking. naturally, there are some glitches dealing with trusted domains. so, do we try to figure out how to deal with them? no! they're already clamoring for the inferior ibm "solution". grrr. woj ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 21:01:56 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Pirates=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=8a?= Anyway, having just returned from a glorious family obligation in Denver, allow me to give my Sierra Nevada Pale Ale induced opinion of TNT's geek flick. Stories: Who cares, it's all hearsay anyway. Characterizations: Jobs - Physically, Wylie(?) did an ok job. He's not as tall and never achieved Steve's "truckin'" walk correctly. Attitude-wise, it's too bad they didn't really go into the modern Jobs. While he's still a dictator, the days of manipulating people's feelings for his own jollies are gone. I think he's more into the business now than he used to be. Woz - C'mon! How much more whiny could they make him out to be? I'll grant you the fact that he's a compassionate genius, but they made him look like a bozo. Gates - Probably should've been more Dr. Evil-ish. A.M.H. also made him sound less goofy than he really is. Ballmer - Spot on. That guy scares the shit out of me. I guess he's intelligent, but fer chrissakes I just hope he remembers to take his medication! Cheers & Jeers: Cheers - "Shut up Ballmer!" Man, I would love to hear Bill say that during a press conference! Jeers - Epilogue: "Microsoft now owns part of Apple". Well shit, so do I! The $150 mil. investment is full of stipulations and are non-voting shares. I'm sure Apple owns quite a bit of M$ stock as well... Cheers - The re-enacted food fight between the Apple II guys and the Macintosh guys. That restaurant was called Eli McFly's back then, but is now an Outback steakhouse. We still invade that place on Friday's to get shitfaced and scare the dining families. Jeers - They didn't even touch on IBM's attempt to buy CP/M from Gary Kildall. I guess that's a whole story in itself. All in all, I don't think it lived up to the hype. out, - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 21:05:12 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Salsa sauce A major avenue in Boulder, Colorado is called "Table Mesa". Of course "table" is English for "mesa". - -tc p.s. had Ethiopian food for the first time in Boulder. Awesome! On 6/21/99 6:26 AM, Michael R Godwin wrote: > >On Mon, 21 Jun 1999, James Dignan wrote: >> And the number of River Avons in Britain >> and around the world (Avon is British - i.e., generic Celtic - for river) >> give you another case of unneccessary and redundant tortology. > >We've got one of them here in Bath - the Welsh bizarrely spell it 'afon' >but it's pronounced avon just the same. There are also a heck of a lot of >River Ouses, so I wouldn't be surprised if ouse meant river too. > > >- MRG > >PS I suspect that there are a few Combe Valleys around as well. Combe (or >coombe or cwm[!]) is British for a valley. > >PPS 'Tautology'. 'Tortology' is the study of middle-European pastries (-: > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 16:55:05 +1200 From: digja611@student.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Re: Kristen Hersh news >>Subject: Kristen Hersh news > >"I repeat myself when I'm distressed..." well, the more you look at it, the more you'll like it! >and let's not forget "Rio Grande River!" there is an old Mexican saying "the line between genius and insanity is very thin - it is called the Rio Grande." James (happy that Storefront is playing at the Dunedin Film Festival in August! Whee!) PS - that Fegnamia thing is startling. Who's been spying on me? James Dignan___________________________________ You talk to me Deptmt of Psychology, Otago University As if from a distance ya zhivu v' 50 Norfolk Street And I reply. . . . . . . . . . Dunedin, New Zealand with impressions chosen from another time steam megaphone (03) 455-7807 (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 22:15:54 PDT From: Capitalism Blows Subject: negativ energy . there's a print ad with a partial list of bands, and it's great. but the really eye-catching one is negativeland (sic), apparently in their "1st show of their 1st tour in 6 years". and i notice they're also playing the showbox in seattle on the 16th. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 08:16:39 +0100 (BST) From: Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer Subject: Re: chai tea pronunsciation >>>>> "Bayard" == Bayard writes: Bayard> Perhaps a US/UK thing. Seems to be. And I thought it was only the UK that deliberately mispronounced words... - -- Stewart C. Russell Analyst Programmer, Dictionary Division stewart@ref.collins.co.uk HarperCollins Publishers use Disclaimer; my $opinion; Glasgow, Scotland ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 08:44:02 +0100 (BST) From: Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer Subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 >>>>> "West" == West writes: West> I was under the impression that Jobs was one of the good West> guys, yet here he is being a giant asshole. Look at The New Hacker's Dictionary, entry "lithium lick". It makes sense. Stewart (who has to try to integrate an ickle-pritty G3 into our Sun network today. If it tries to think different, it'd better think again.) - -- Stewart C. Russell Analyst Programmer, Dictionary Division stewart@ref.collins.co.uk HarperCollins Publishers use Disclaimer; my $opinion; Glasgow, Scotland ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 08:56:15 +0100 (BST) From: Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer Subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 >>>>> "Gene" == Gene Hopstetter, writes: Gene> the work of Jobs and Gates (and Woz and Ballmer and Gene> Allen and so on) made possible what I do today (full-time Gene> web.geek) Hmm. And I always thought that M$ and Apple were bandwagoneers when it came to web technology. WALLY: Hold it right there, buddy. That scruffy beard . . . those suspenders . . . that smug expression . . . You're one of those condescending Unix computer users! OLD UNIX TYPE: Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a better computer. -- Dilbert, 24 June 1995 - -- Stewart C. Russell Analyst Programmer, Dictionary Division stewart@ref.collins.co.uk HarperCollins Publishers use Disclaimer; my $opinion; Glasgow, Scotland ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 11:52:35 -0600 From: ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com Subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 >Hmm. And I always thought that M$ and Apple were bandwagoneers when it >came to web technology. IMO- how they influenced "what we do today" has mostly to do with the broader fact that lots and lots and lots of people have computers in their home. In 1978 this was not really even conceivable. When I was (I think) 8 years old, my family bought the aforementioned TI99/4A, and it was definitely being marketed as a "computer for the people", and I remember most people thought a home computer was an odd novelty- our neighbors thought it was kind of eccentric that we had one. There was also Amiga, TRS80, Timex Sinclair......It's not as if Steve Jobs were the only person or even probably the first to think- "there will be computers in people's homes". Not by a mile. The idea was in the air. I was thinking what may have done it was the GUI, but the Amiga had a GUI. So I'm not really sure what the innovation was that kicked it, but I do know it wasn't just the GUI, because we aren't all on Amigas. It really may just have been about unbelievable -drive- on the part of those two men to see the damn thing happen. Random thoughts: I think Woj is right about open source and big companies. I'm not an enemy of open source, actually. I think it's a really excellent thing. But I think also that working for an ISP, out in Portland, Oregon, one might get a different view than people in other workplaces, in other parts of the country. Where he works (a medium-large candy company), he is the magic hoodoo man. A computer is to these people, not a machine, but a wayward, magical thing, and the tech person is a master magician who makes it obey when it is being wilful. They never did anything to mess it up, you know, it is just being wayward as magical beings sometimes are. Since computers are magic, fixes are magic. And fast. If the magic box is not doing magic again within a short period of time, they become very angry at the hoodoo man what fixum box. They're going to be very very hesitant to adopt anything that doesn't have a ready-made fix, because everything must have a magic fix, and it must be a quick magic fix. (Don't get me started about how the StealthB virus is going around the company like wildfire because everyone trades floppies instead of putting stuff on the network, or the chick who didn't like her monitor display so she thought she'd just select another video card from the ones listed.....). Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 13:02:23 -0400 From: **twofangs** {randi} Subject: oops Sorry, used my work sig. file... I like my Robyn sig. muuuuuuuuuuch better -- especially 'cause it's true. *what scares you most will set you free* -- Robyn H. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 12:00:19 -0600 From: ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com Subject: Re: Back online >Guess it's gonna take a while to catch up on things. Anyone fancy >summing up the last 3 months in a few lines? Fegstuff. No really, I can't remember any life-changing events. I'm not sure how long you've been back on, but there has been some news about "Jewels for Sophia" and the "Music Against Brain Degeneration" tour in the past couple weeks. >PS Fly should be releasing their first 'proper' album very soon... I have Fly's "improper" album. It's really really good, people. Go out and get this one when the time comes. *waves hello and welcome back to Gary* Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 10:01:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 On Wed, 23 Jun 1999 ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com wrote: > I think Woj is right about open source and big companies. As I said before (in a bit that Woj snipped from his post), there's still money in software support. And lots of folks are making money supporting open source products. And that's good for everyone since nobody's locked into a vendor. > But I think also that working for an ISP, out in Portland, Oregon, one > might get a different view than people in other workplaces, in other parts > of the country. Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I don't work for an ISP. I work for a non-Bell national telco that doesn't have any residential customers. Backbone and long-haul data. Just to clear things up. Nerdy nitpicking, J. - -- ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 12:03:52 -0600 From: ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com Subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 >Where he works (a medium-large candy company), (Sorry, fooey editing. "He" refers to my SO) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 12:16:05 -0600 From: ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com Subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 >As I said before (in a bit that Woj snipped from his post), there's still >money in software support. Yesterday I was cheerfully told that I should quit ranting about the planned obsolescence thing since it pays part of our rent. I couldn't argue with that :). Same thing for Y2K. If the entire world had had Apples and reasonably new Apple software (say, written within the past 5-6 years- there's some older shit that isn't compliant), Doug wouldn't be doing Y2K work. > And lots of folks are making money supporting open source products. And >that's good >for everyone since nobody's locked into a vendor. I don't think everyone should be. But what I do think is that for now they are, and they like that, and trust that, and they probably don't really want to change it. What I was trying to get at was a lot of large companies are NOT very forward-looking, the employees are -extremely- averse to change, they want quick fixes and are convinced that a large company whose name they are familiar with is where they're going to get them. They just want the magic box to go. They really do not care how it goes. >a non-Bell national telco that doesn't have any residential customers. >Backbone and long-haul data. Just to clear things up. Sorry about that. I was confused. I think my point still holds working in a techy biz in a fairly techy town gives you a very different view of this. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 10:20:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds '99 I'll really try to stop posting in this topic soon. On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, JH3 wrote: > >The money to be made on software has been made. With the exception of > >enterprise application support and licensing, the market's gone. Consumer > >software is dead. > We don't even have decent consumer-grade 3D and VR interfaces, or > reliable voice/handwriting recognition, much less "wet-ware" or > anthropomorphic robots, and you're already pronouncing consumer > software dead? Eeek! John, you completely misunderstood me. Consumer software is dead in the sense that its days as a profitable industry are numbered. Just like the record distribution industry's days are numbered (with massive shifts in revenue sources). People are done buying software. It's getting easier and easier to distribute for free and therefore "pirate". > I'll admit, things have slowed down, mainly because everyone's > obsessed with Y2K (pure retrogression) and the Internet (too slow), > and the hardware hasn't reached the level it has to be at to handle > the next generation of fancy shit. But it will! It will! And on that day, > the world... will... tremble... I agree that more shit will take place. And new things will be developed either for commercial application by people paid by companies or for individual use by people who just think it would be cool to create such a thing. I do question this thing about 3D and VR interfaces, though. It's like the video phone. Sure we COULD do it, but who wants it? After the novelty is gone, the practical application just goes downhill. There is no real need for these fancy things in most cases. That's why email is the hot shit thing it is. It's simple and easy and does exactly what it should and no more. As for Y2K slowing things down, well, that's possible I suppose. I know we're not spending less of our resources on developing new service because of our efforts to forestall failing old services. However, I can see bigger, older companies having that problem. And as for the internet being too slow, well, I have as fast an internet connection as anybody here at work and I tell ya, it's not too far from being in your house. Now, the increased traffic will make it seem just as slow as it is now, but you'll be waiting minutes to get a new album instead of a single track. Anyway, the cool new stuff is coming. But people who want it can get it for free and that means the money will fall out of it when it's just as easy to receive and build as it is to buy and install. (And I'd argue that we're pretty much there already, but folks just don't reach out and take it.) > >Free Software is good for you. > Agreed, up to a point. That point being that if nobody makes *big* > money from applications development, there won't be many more big > applications, will there? Who wants big applications? I want small applications that run fast and do exactly what they should do and use portable, open protocols and standards so that the work in one application can be sent to another application for further work. As for single task "big applications", I point you to things like gnome and the gimp, not to mention wholly free operating systems, programming environments and toolkits. > I'm hardly what you'd call a money-grubbing > capitalist, but I do believe that incentive is one of the keys to > progress. Of course, if you're happy with the way things are now, > fine. I just hope most people aren't, because then things would get > really boring for me personally. And, to be the Slashdot evangelist Susan already thinks I am, free software isn't just about being royalty free, it's about being free from the confines of a single vendor or protocol. Nothing is proprietary and so nothing confines. Nothing is "uniquely extended" and so everything interconnects seemlessly. It's a beautiful thing. And for those that think open source isn't for everyone, check out the Qube2 and other such products that are cheap, easy, and very useful for everyone. > Damn, that reminds me, I still haven't finished the "Asking Tree" site... Now see, even though you're using proprietary systems (which you shouldn't do), you're building a software application for fun... for use by everybody. That sort of thing will continue. And if your stuff were written for something free and open, it would be very easy for future generations to come along and improve what you've done... extend it... and take it to new places, no matter what Microsoft decides to allow you to do with their technology. Ah... heaven. J. - -- ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #217 *******************************