From jeff@starfall.com.nospam Thu Feb 10 00:39:07 2000 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan Subject: Re: TAN: US Politics (Was Re: Rand's new One Power Problems) From: jeff@starfall.com.nospam (Jeff Huo) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 23:39:07 -0600 In article , msteeves@shore.net says... > On 08 Feb 2000 22:17:22 EST, jsn@concentric.net wrote: > } (Small engineering projects are for wussies. I want space tethers. I > } want Mercury-orbit anti-matter farms. I want Jovian-orbit long > } baseline interferometry satellites. I want respirocytes. I want > } integrated optical processors. I want to be able to pay my Visa > } bill from a bidet in Paris. Oh, wait, we almost have that one....) > > "Have you ever wanted to pay your Visa bill from a gold-plated bidet in > Paris...? Well, you will...with AT&T!" > I remember those commercials...they're all so uniformly cheerful, tho; I mean, how come we don't see the other side of the coin at all? To wit: (You see a desk, with a computer monitor, a pair of slippered feet propped up on it. In the background a TV shows a Hockey game. One hand reaches out with a remote to flip channels, the other lazily manipulates a trackball. It's obvious the user is distracted. We zoom in on the screen. It is an extrodinarily complex diagram of some major industrial system. We zoom all the way in to watch the cursor as it swings just past the left edge of a square button marked "maintain flow" and just barely into a buttom marked "shut flow", then double clicks. The box turns red, as does a thick line leading to and away from the box. We follow along that line to a label --"REACTOR COOLANT LOOP") (dissolve to a shot of the concrete surface of a containment dome. We see a massive web of cracks race across it's surface, followed by a violent explosion. We pan backwards as we see the contents of the building thrown upwards in a giant pillar of flame) Have you ever caused a major industrial disaster from the comfort of your own living room? (cut to scene of a user typing on a computer at home. She finishes a message, and hits send. A progress meter shows, and then a "Message sent to group" window is displayed. Cut to outside of house. Suddenly several --then a dozen-- cars pull up in front. People pile out of them as well as flowing in from all directions. All are shouting. Many carry sticks or torches or guns. They converge on the house, ripping down the yard fence, crashing through it's windows, battering down it's doors, climbing onto the roof and beating holes through to lower themselves in.) Have you ever homocidially pissed off thousands of people you've never met? (cut to a darkened bedroom. You see a young woman woman grabbing a picture frame with photograph of herself hugging a young man, yanking it violently from the wall, and smashing it to the floor. She stomps on it a few times, then sits down to a computer terminal and begins typing furiously. We zoom in to the now-muilated photo, zoom in on the young man's face... which dissolves to the young man's face in _his_ bedroom, doing air-guitar in his boxers for his _new_ girlfriend. He is making a massive fool of himself. We zoom past him, zoom past his laughing girlfriend, to his computer, where a tiny green indicator light suddenly comes to life on the web camera mounted on his computer... ...and suddenly we're watching the same scene of air_guitar we were earlier, except we're watching along with tens of thousands of Tokyo commuters who have stopped in mid stream to watch this scene play out on the four-story video face of the Shibuya JR Train station plaza... ...and we're watching the same scene along with thousands of pedestrians and drivers who have stopped in the middle of Times Square to see this show... ...and we're watching the same scene along with the hundred- thousand plus fans in Michigan Stadium now staring at the video screens on the scoreboards over the end zones... ...and we're watching along with two million gathered pilgrims in St. Peter's Square in Rome who were expecting to see the Pontiff displayed on several large projection screens ringing the plaza, but are now instead treated to a particularly off-key rendition of "Layla"...) Have you ever been humiliated on scales unimaginable? You will...thanks to AT&T! -Jeff -- Jeff Huo | jeff@starfall.com.nospam (remove nospam) U. Michigan Med | http://www.starfall.com/~jeff New to the group? Welcome! Please read http://www.landfield.com/faqs/sf/robert-jordan-faq/