Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1992 14:36:14 CDT
From:         Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      Settling of the Internet

3 Messages, 113 Lines
*-----
From:         "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject:      Re: Settling of Internet: with a smile, please!
No, Judy, you are not getting flamed, at least not by me.  However, in a
great contradistinction to the ways in which most people have determined
I write (other than those who errantly confuse justified margins as some
indication of planning and preparation [those who know me know that this
is a live terminal I am writing from, without speller, Grammtik or what,
they know I just write this way on the fly]) I have been holding back on
the issue of scouts, pioneers, settlers and lawyers for some time now in
an effort not to cause my predictions to become self-fulfilling prophesy
as I have been warned they would.  (Don't forget the Native-Americans on
the nets, either. . .must as the term "wild indians" has been maligned a
few years now, the term still has its moments in describing the wildest,
wildest, wildest of a certain breed of hacker.)

Now, having said all that, I have prepared a few articles about "The End
of the Internet" and the fallout and fallin from the events of this 1992
Summer (yes, Judy, since I started during the week that ended June, I am
allowed to say Summer).

If anyone would like to see the series of articles entitled:

"Announcing The End of the Internet, Details at 11:00"

and various other titles based on those phrases,

please just let me know.

However, a word in advance, these articles are copyrighted.
*====================================================

Thank you for your interest,

Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text
Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext
Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532
No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC
hart @uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
*------
From:         Claudia Lynch <AS04@UNTVM1>
Subject:      Re: Settling of Internet: with a smile, please!
On Tue, 6 Oct 1992 10:20:02 -0500 <JUDYK@LIB.TECHNION.AC.IL> said:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I found the pioneers/settlers analogy both amusing and thought-provoking.
>I was a bit sorry, then, to see Claudia Lynch's reaction to one
>phrase of it:

>>knowledge :/

The :/ above IS a smiley, it is a wry smile.
>
>I get the feeling Claudia meant this to be funny, but to me it came
>over as uncomfortably sarcastic. Such preventable things are flame wars
>made of.  I should know, I've made the same mistake myself...
>
>A smiley :-) would have helped.
>
>PS: just in case it was meant the way it sounds: surely Internet
>country is still far from that late stage of settlement where you
>have to watch out in case an army of lawyers rebukes you for having
>used the words "last summer" to refer to any time before June 23rd...?
>Or for talking of developing rules, regulations and guidebooks without
>specifying in the small print that some do indeed exist, but the
>first 2 are too complicated (//DD etc.) and specific and there are not
>enough of the third...? Legalese goes very ill with the joy of
>discovery, which is what I thought we were talking about.
>
I sent the message referred to in this post because I am tired of people
who have arrived in the land of the nets recently (like last summer) and seem
to think nothing existed before them. I agree, it probably came off a bit more
mean spirited than it should have. I could have toned it down.

As for complicated, //DD is no more complicated than anything else if
you follow the instructions. We have an online card catalog at our
library and I have trouble using it because I don't use it often enough.
Its all a matter of what you get used to doing.

I guess the bottom line is that I think many people in Library Science, who
now consider themselves "information professionals," feel like they are the
only ones who can provide solutions to problems that don't really exist.
They are just not familiar with the solutions yet. For a good example of
the kind of naivete I am talking about, see the On-Line box on page A17 of
_The Chronicle of Higher Education_ (Sept. 30, 1992). The first entry is
both hilarious and sad.

I think PACS-L is a good list, which is why I continue to subscribe to it.
I have gotten much valuable information from this list. This is not a flame
to the list. It is merely a statement of personal opinion. Believe it or not,
I have received personal messages thanking me for expressing others' feelings
also.
*======================================================================
                                             |      /+++++++++++
Claudia Lynch                                |      |           |
Documentation Services Manager               |      | ^      () |
Academic Computing Services                  |      |     -     |
University of North Texas Computing Center   |      |     O     |
UNT Box 13495                                |      |---------/|
Denton, Texas   76203                        |
Voice: 817-565-2324  FAX: 817-565-4060       |   Standard disclaimer
                                             |   graffito
*=======================================================================
*-----
Subject: Re: Settling of Internet: with a smile, please!
I have only had time to read snippets of the pioneers discussion, so this
may be redundant.  Dana, please delete it if so.  A respected colleague
often says, "Pioneers get one of two things.  The best farms or arrows
in their back."  Is that enough smile Judy?  ;-)*
Bill Hanson
Calgary Board of Education
BHanson@CBE.AB.CA
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU