You are all a bunch of cypherpunks

[David Miller <dm0@avana.net>]

Tim May wrote (my comments below):
> 
> This is largely a matter of personal preference (i.e., religious), but I'll
> say why I think Wm. Geiger's claims are unconvincing.
> 
> At 9:58 PM -0700 12/29/97, William H. Geiger III wrote:
> 
> >Lets see how many years before winblows were there computers??
> >
> >It may be hard to believe for some of the "youngsters" on the list but
> >people got quite a bit of work done before the fancy GUI's and the ever
> >insistent push to "upgrade" every six months by Micky$loth.
> 
> The real boom in productivity has to do with users not having to memorize
> various command sequences for various programs.
> 
> What the Macintosh made popular (though I won't get into the dangerous
> ground of saying it pioneered these ideas--see Note below) was the approach
> of having a relatively consistent set of commands across many applications.
> And with the commands visible in a menu bar.
> 
> (Note: The Symbolics and Xerox Lisp/Smalltalk machines I used in the early
> 80s had similar features, with pop-up menus of commonly used commands. And,
> of course, with even heavier use of object-oriented methodologies than the
> Mac could afford to include. The idea of a unified, integrated environment
> is an old one, going back at least to Doug Engelbart in the 60s, and
> perhaps even further back. And the Bobrow book, "Design of Interactive
> Programming Environments," laid out most of the features we now call "GUI."
> Or some people call "GUI.")
> 
> The effect of this all is profound. It means that a manager or secretary or
> whatever doesn't need to write down a bunch of funny commands for Wordstar,
> or Emacs, or Autocad...he or she can "muddle through" just by going to the
> "File" menu item to open files, save them, make copies, etc. Or to the
> "Edit" menu item to make changes, cut and paste, alter fonts, whatever.
> 
> Specialists in some particular program of course become proficient even
> without a GUI or Menu-based system. But of course most GUI programs (Mac,
> of course, and Windows, and most Unices) offer various keyboard shortcuts.
> 
> Maybe Wm. Geiger and others dismiss GUI or Menu interfaces as "training
> wheels." Perhaps. But it's very useful to have such aids when dealing with
> 5 or 10 or 30 different programs!
> 
> (I started out on a Data General Nova, got a Proc Tech Sol as my first PC,
> then a VAX, then an IBM PC, then a Symbolics 3600 Lisp Machine, then a Mac,
> and so on. With my PC, moving from one program to another was always
> painful, and I had various keyboard overlays (remember those?) to help me
> transition from the "Cmd-Shift-Backspace" to select a word in BlueWord
> 1.00A to "Shift-Doubleclick" to do the same thing in SpreadSheet 1.5. Once
> I got my Macintosh, this all ended. No more keyboard overlays...they
> weren't needed.)
> 
> >A well train and experienced secretary will be much more productive with a
> >text-mode WP with a good set of macro's and keyboard accelerators. A mouse
> >and a GUI is not only unnecessary but counter-productive.
> 
> Which of course explains why corporations are not using Windows or Macs!
> 
> I disagree strongly that any corporation is more productive, overall, with
> such tools. Granted, a fast typist equipped with some special purpose text
> entry system (we used to have Laniers and Wangs as our "secretary
> engines"), but that typist will not be constrained by typing in a GUI
> window!
> 
> But of course most companies, especially larger high tech companies, don't
> even have secretaries to type and retype letters, memos, and reports.
> Engineers, and even managers, and even very senior managers, type most of
> their own stuff these days. (Or so all my friends in Silicon Valley assure
> me.)
> 
> I started typing all my own technical papers into my own IBM PC back in
> '83, using the first version of Microsoft Word. While it is true that I was
> being paid to be a scientist, and not a typist, it was far faster for me to
> write the papers on my PC, edit them, and so on, than to submit a longhand
> (arghh!) copy to a secretary, finagle to get her to work on it, get it back
> several days later, find numerous errors I had not put there, and even
> missing sentences and paragraphs. And so on.
> 
> This experience of mine has been repeated millions of times in corporate
> America. Even my old boss, Andy Grove, now types all of his correspondence,
> which is now mostly e-mail. Or so he claims.
> 
> In this environment, where people at all levels are using multiple
> programs--e-mail, word processing, drawing, spreadsheets, math programs,
> graphing programs, Web browsers, and so on--it is much more efficient to
> have an integrated environment, a common set of basic commands, a GUI.
> 
> >I would take a good multi-threaded, multi-tasking, text mode system over
> >the drivile that keeps comming out of Redmond, WA. anyday.
> 
> I think the quality of lack of quality of word processors is grossly
> overrated.
> 
> Most features are not used in ordinary writing. I write a *lot* of stuff,
> and 99% of what I write is completely nondependent on bells and whistles in
> most word processing programs.
> 
> (I could digress into discussing writing features I like to use for some
> projects, such as MORE's outlining features, or page layout features I use
> in FrameMaker. But 99% of my writing is now done for e-mail like this,
> using the straightforward text tools of Eudora Pro.)
> 
> Most writing is done "typewriter style," with the ability to move words
> around just lagniappe.  (And often dangerous lagniappe at that...most
> errors creep in when people move words and sentences around, often leaving
> them mismatching their surroundings in tense and awkwardly linking to often
> leaving them mismatching often leaving them mismatching...see what I mean?)
> 
> Good writing comes from good writers, not from word processing programs.
> Those who can't put a decent argument together will not find solace in some
> "good multi-threaded, multi-tasking, text mode system."
> 
> --Tim May
> 
> The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
> ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
> Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
> ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
> W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
> Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
> "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway.

This list was "supposed" to be about issues other than os bitches
and gun talk.

Think of your history.  [See efga.org before your history becomes your
past.]

I called vi the best to shut this shit up.  Let's talk about some (new)
real
cypherpunk shit.  Not TEOTWAWKI like misc.survivalism.  Ok, but give me
a break.

These are the projects with current priority:

1)  I am starting a credit-card swiping program for interested citizens
in
    Atlanta.  The vast majority don't know what is on their credit
cards.
    Although they do not technically "own" the cards, I feel they have a
right
    to know what the ABA format has to say about them.

    (No, I'm not advocating fraud, so don't even start with me.)

2)  I want to know anyone who knows anything about full-duplex soundcard
    programming under Linux.  Internet Telephony is fast opon us, do you
want
    to subscribe or design?  This is duplex Nautilus II.  Get in gear.

I have 1) completed.  How about 2)?  Any closet Nautilus users out
there?

We could code, or we could just type jerk off until the clock strikes 5
pm.

--David Miller

middle  rival
devil rim lad

Windows '95 -- a dirty, two-bit operating system.

Encrypted IP Voice Duplex '98 for North America

(Apologies to Tim.  You know I agree with all that shit...)