re: sci fi

[Alan Olsen <alan@ctrl-alt-del.com>]

At 09:50 PM 11/21/96 -0800, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote:
>Without a doubt contemporary SciFi authors such as Vinge and Stephenson
have produced
>great thought provoking works. Always a good read. 
>
>But sometimes I'm drawn back to the rollicking rampages of EE Doc Smith or
the playful
>frollicks of Harry Harrison. While not presenting a plausible vision of
our future
>they do offer a significant amount of enjoyment. Pure brain candy!

For absolute brain candy, I recommend "Star Smashers of the Galaxy
Rangers".  EE.Doc Smith meets the Hardy Boys.  The ending I had to read
twice...

>So will some exceptionally creative sort spend 3 or 4 hundred pages exploring
>BlackNet and the future of global networking? 

We can only hope.

>Or has anyone looked at what has happened to trivial networks like 
>IRC's EFnet to see a potential model for how global networking will become 
>balkanized under bandwidth constraints, server cycle shortages,
>and over worked sysadmins? One physical connection and many virtual,
>private networks with limitted interoperability and crossover. The
internet of
>the near future may not be the open paradise it is today.

The bandwidth will increase and people will find bigger and better ways to
chew it up.  Governments will make bigger and bigger claims to why their
set of petty rule outweigh other governemnts petty rules, increasing fear,
uncertanty and doubt in the process.  All in all, things will change and
life will go on.  (Unless we all die and then all bets are off.)

>I read in InfoWorld that the Telco Dereg act may destroy the local loop
market
>for T1 lines from LD COs. As many as 900,000 new T1's may become available
at bargain
>rates on the order of $40 per month with end point hardware under $700.
Watch 
>PairGain Technologies as they are the leader in this hardware market and have
>some real interesting vox/data over twisted pair toys.

Mmmm!  Bandwidth!

I hear of people complaining how much time is spent online.  This is going
to be a heroin-like fix to those sort of people.  (I already have access to
a t-1.  It can be pretty damn addicting.  At least when the rest of the net
is willing to cooperate...)  I expect that the big winners in the bandwidth
wars will be the hard drive manufacturers.  Imagine the amount of crap that
will accumulate when downloads take seconds instead on minutes (or hours).
Buy your stock now!

>Sheesh, I start out talking SciFi and end up talking PairGain! I guess the
future
>is now.

Actually the future was last week.  Sorry.  You missed it.

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