Rohit, do *not* remove me from the list!
Welcome back, Adam. You've been deeply missed.
- SaL'
> -----Original Message-----
> From: I Find Karma [SMTP:adam@cs.caltech.edu]
> Sent: Monday, December 07, 1998 9:22 AM
> To: fork@xent.ICS.uci.edu
> Cc: megan.coughlin-next@attws.com
> Subject: Internet Capacity the Major Theme for 1999.
>
> Rumors of my death were mildly exaggerated.
>
> Synopsis of the last three months: I left Microsoft, I went to IETF, I
> saw Rohit, I went into a coma, the stock market had a mini-crash, FoRK
> saw a lot of signups, Rohit saw a working munchkin, Rohit appeared on
> Cringelyvision the day he turned 24 and was greeted by a transocean
> visit from RobH, two days later RobH turned 28, FoRK saw a lot of random
> posts, FoRK saw a lot of desertions, the stock market had a
> mini-rebound, I went out of a coma, I saw Rohit, Rohit went to IETF, and
> I remembered that on this day three years ago Microsoft officially
> announced its intentions for the Internet. Somewhere in there I got
> married; somewhere in there my wife and I moved to a new apartment;
> somewhere in there American Express sent me a platinum card even though
> I was an idiot in a coma with the salary of a destitute graduate
> student; somewhere in there many of you tried to contact me and/or goad
> me and/or troll me into posting even though I wasn't conscious enough to
> listen to any of the several dozen Win98 crashes on my home PC, several
> hundred snail mails, several hundred answering machine messages, or
> several thousand emails; somewhere in there the resumes I had sent last
> spring to McKinsey & Company, IBM, and Oracle for a job after Caltech
> were met respectively with a rejection letter, a job offer, and a job
> offer; somewhere in there I ordered from http://www.gap.com/ because I
> was too sick to leave the apartment; somewhere in there Microsoft bought
> me a 450MHz Pentium II Gateway mootop and IBM bought me a 266MHz Pentium
> II Thinkpad; somewhere in there I went roughly three months without any
> new bits whatsoever (much like FoRK, eh?). In two days I turn 29, 23
> days before the beginning of the Euro, 388 days before Y2K, 754 days
> before the new millennium (with two L's and two N's and two M's and one
> leap year, thankyouverymuch).
>
> Several (nontech) friends have asked me in answering machine messages
> and email and snail mail if they should fear the Euro and Y2K enough to
> pull all of their money out of the stock and bond markets and put them
> into their mattresses, and I say no, that exiting the markets right now
> would be tantamount to exiting "A Bug's Life" before seeing the outtakes
> in the ending credits. The best is yet to come. There will be no
> worldwide depression at the end of 1999 as long as we all keep our heads
> and approach this rationally.
>
> *blink* *blink* I was dreaming when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too
> fast, but life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last.
>
> Looking back two sentences, I can't believe I'm putting my faith in the
> rationality of humanity as a whole. Heaven help me, I still firmly
> believe the Dow will see 10,000 before 2000. Then again, I've been
> bit-starved for three months. AOL bought *whom*? Exxon merged with
> *whom*? I look at the NYSE, and Chrysler is *where*? Earthweb, The
> Globe, Ticketmaster/Citysearch, and Ubid jumped *how much* in their
> first days of trading?! Amazon, Yahoo, Inktomi, and eBay stocks jumped
> to *what*?! Sepracor's stock is up *how much* since 1997?! Dell's,
> EMC's, and Cisco's stocks are up *how much* since 1990?!?! The S&P 500
> is up 23% this year, the fourth major bull year for it in a row?!?!?!
> I'm sure the people whose money has been sitting on the sidelines --
> assuming they managed to save at all -- have kicked themselves for
> missing such gangbuster leaps in the 1990s.
>
> Right here, right now, at this crossroads, is a fascinating time to be
> alive, and I am very happy I did not, in fact, die. Three years ago,
> just after Microsoft's full fledged Internet maneuver, Rohit made a full
> fledged Internet maneuver of his own: starting this list. Like Rohit
> himself, this list has had its ups and downs. But just as I believe
> 1999 will be the most interesting year yet of human existence from a bit
> and clue standpoint, I do believe that 1999 will be the best year ever
> for FoRK. Leave if you want, but I'm optimistic to see what comes next.
> (Better than leaving, of course, would be setting your filters for
> certain people on "extra crispy.")
>
> One of the first things I found in one of my first hops online in three
> months is from
>
> http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/981206/ba.html
>
> and included below. In one sense, these is not new, groundbreaking
> bits: we all know the bandwidth issue is going to get worse before it
> gets better (and, hopefully, eventually, irrelevant). So I want to put
> this article in the FoRK scrapbook just as indicative of an era we'll
> look back and laugh at someday. ("The DoJ thought they could take
> Microsoft to court?! Bawhahahahaha!")
>
> Nevertheless, there are some short-term obstacles we must overcome
> before we can tackle some of the big-picture, longer-term issues.
>
> Probably sometime before year's end I'll do a bunch of bitsurfing to see
> what I've missed these past few months. I'll pitch a summary of my
> infosponging here to this list in what will probably be 100-200k of
> adamspew, some of which you'll have already heard before but hopefully
> some of which you might have missed. To spare your delete key finger,
> I'll consolidate it all into a single post.
>
> Anyone who has anything sour, stupid, senseless, or cynical to say,
> please send it just to me and not to this whole list. Common courtesy
> would dictate to delete five things you were planning to post for every
> one thing you actually do send. Otherwise, whenever you do actually
> have something interesting to say, no one will listen.
>
> Think early. Think often. And by all means, smoke like FDR - a man
> stricken by polio, stuck in a wheelchair, fighting the Nazis all the
> while, smoking three and a half packs a day.
>
> Included article below:
> > Internet capacity major theme for 1999 - study
> > By Frances Hong
> >
> > NEW YORK, Dec 6 (Reuters) - With traffic over the Internet doubling
> > every 100 days, the major theme for the computer, telephone and cable
> > industries next year will be the need to boost speed and capacity for
> > information highway cruisers, a technology survey said.
> >
> > The PricewaterhouseCoopers' ``Technology Forecast: 1999,'' due to be
> > released Monday, sees demand for bandwidth, or the communications
> > capacity to quickly and efficiently handle voice, data and video, as the
> > big technology issue for 1999.
> >
> > Comparing the movement of data on the Internet to traffic jams on Los
> > Angeles freeways, technology experts say the biggest challenge for the
> > industry going into 1999 will be squeezing more traffic through existing
> > access lanes.
> >
> > ``We're seeing huge plays by the telephone, cable and satellite
> > companies all struggling to be the bandwidth provider of choice to
> > consumers,'' said Michael Katz, of the professional services firm's
> > global technology center.
> >
> > In the last year, the phone and cable industries came to unexpectedly
> > rapid agreement on standardized equipment for delivering high-speed
> > Internet connections and set the stage for widespread use of such
> > services starting next year, he said.
> >
> > ``These providers will be challenged by decreasing prices they can
> > charge for bandwidth and meeting increasing demand -- and they're hoping
> > that traffic goes up faster than the prices go down,'' he said.
> >
> > Continued consolidation in the telecommunications market will lead to
> > the emergence of four or five global supercarriers by 2002 as well as up
> > to 4,000 national and regional niche players, the report said.
> >
> > Bandwidth is also critical to the success of electronic commerce.
> > ``Shopping over the Internet can be frustratingly slow, but increasing
> > bandwidth can enrich the (online) shopping experience,'' said Katz.
> >
> > Meanwhile technology will continue to improve as its cost falls.
> > Increasing competition in the industry will not only force consolidation
> > but drive prices even lower in 1999.
> >
> > Consider the personal computer market. A year ago, the introduction of
> > $1,000 PCs provoked even the non-techie to take a ``byte.'' Now Compaq
> > (NYSE:CPQ - news), IBM (NYSE:IBM - news) and other computer makers have
> > flooded the market with computers for as little as $500 to $600 ahead of
> > the holiday shopping season.
> >
> > Experts also predict a wave of mergers among suppliers of enterprise
> > resource planning software, which a growing number of companies are
> > using to link manufacturing, payroll, customer service and other
> > operations, both on internal office networks and through suppliers'
> > networks.
> >
> > In coming years, the lines between the public Internet and internal
> > office networks will continue to blur, which promises smoother rides for
> > business and recreational Web users alike.
> >
> > More information on the report, the 10th edition of an encyclopedic
> > survey of the computer and telecommunications industries, can be found
> > at http://www.pwc-tech-forecast.com/ (New York Newsdesk--212-859-1700)
>
> ----
> adam@cs.caltech.edu
>
> .sig quadro-play!
>
> Silence may not be golden, but at least it's quiet.
>
> Don't speak unless you can improve the silence.
>
> I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
>
> It's better to be silent and be thought an idiot (or dead) than to open
> your mouth and remove all doubt.
>