meta ruminations on the next big thing

[Adam L. Beberg]

On Sun, 11 Nov 2001, Tom wrote:

> On Sun, 11 Nov 2001, Tom wrote:
>
> --]I would put forth that your looking at limitations not of the worth but of
> --]the applications there of. I do not think an AOL is a good and great
> --]things in much the same way the old check out person at the supermarket
> --]is. But give me folks the option of a U-Scan and many, not all, will find
> --]it far more usefull.
> --]
>
> That should have read   I DO THINK AOL IS A ...etc etc etc

Exactly. Until AOL came along and embraced the masses the net was a pain in
the ass with no hope of helping my mom. Now my mom, sister, aunts and uncles
are all online. They email and IM. Mom has learned I don't get pissed if she
talks to me asyncronously :)

AOL make their lives better but remember that AOL was a _closed_ network for
a very long time and noone much cared they couldn't get on "the net". And
noone on the net wanted the AOL people to get out either.

As for the U-Scan, that wont help my mom she still uses checks! I cant get
her to accept the 5-10 minutes she would save by using her check-card. Tho
she does work in a bank fraud dept, so there is probably a good reason for
that. 50% yearly growth and accelerating, too bad it's in fraud. The
recession should turn that growth rate into something dwarfing even a
dot-com.

Buy the U-Scan only puts min wage folks out of work, so who here cares ;)

hrm, maybe my original question way back should have been what's the next
big thing society is ready to cope with... oh well... back to gettting ready
for tuesday... damn holidays...

- Adam L. "Duncan" Beberg
  http://www.iit.edu/~beberg/
  beberg@mithral.com