Purple Hazing

Gregory Alan Bolcer (gbolcer@gambetta.ICS.uci.edu)
Mon, 02 Feb 1998 11:16:42 -0800


> Gee, just what we need, one more tacky "Microsoft == Nazi" analogy.
> Thanks for raising the level of debate, Greg.

Oh Please, Joe. You aren't buying into that Political Correctness
phenomenon where science is invalidated by your political affiliations?
Goebbels was a sociologist first. You want to hear an analogy? Let
me draw attention to Stalin's rewriting of agricultural science
in the 1930's, because the Communists considered it too
bourgeois. Forget the fact that 15 million starved to death as
a result; at least it was politically correct. They had a debate
on the NY Times forum a while back as to whether scientists should be
using science which is "tainted." In other words, if a Nazi scientist
contributed something useful to a particular scientific discipline,
PCers are suffering a real moral dillema as to whether or not they
should "accept" and "use" that science. Can you imagine SCUBA divers
not using dive charts because the Navy intentional bend'ed their
divers to see what the human limits where? Can you imagine turning
down a liver transplant because it was fomerly a body part of
a neo-nazi?

I understand your touchiness on this subject, but I will forgive
your inferiority complex. After all, Microsoft was the company
that brought you Interactive Barney. If merging Barney, the doll
people love to hate, and Microsoft, the company we love to hate,
wasn't a recipe for scorn, I don't know what is. The end product,
however is something brilliant. ActiMates Barney, I believe is the
first glimmer of an idea that will lead to broad uses for carry-along
intelligent agents, something along the idea of wearable computers,
giga pet key chains, active badges, and real life smart pets. Could
be that Hamilton is a former Irvineite and USC Alumni that puts a
soft spot in my heart, but I think that it's promising technology,
if not the best marketing approach.

Ain't grandfalloons great?

Greg