Can anyone fill me in on Infomagic?

My questions -- Who is he really, where has he gone, has he been completely discredited, is he still the doomer of doomers, etc.

I read some of his scarey stuff when I first became a GI, but later on when he disappeared from the scene I somehow missed the explanation.

Just hopin' he was wrong wrong wrong, or else we're all dead dead dead.

-- little me (still@this.address), June 08, 1999

Answers

You'll only be, dead,dead,dead if you continue to sit,sit,sit. Hope that's not the case! Now, up,up,up, and go,go,go!!!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 08, 1999.

See the WRP Archive at http://www.kiyoinc.com/pre wrp10.html, in particular the following articles:

DC Y2K Weather Report Number 107 
- Infomagic III

DC Y2K Weather Report Number 106 
- Why Infomagic is a Pollyanna
- Bruce Webster debunks Infomagic
- Infomagic Responds to his Critics.

DC Y2K Weather Report Number 103 
- Infomagic, part II

DC Y2K Weather Report Number 100 
- Infomagic I

Infomagic is supposedly preparing another article that says he'll quote

"expand on this in the next article in my Set Recovery On series. I've been waiting for the DOW to top 10,000 because the lack of an early stock market crash is one of the main reasons I am more pessimistic -- the higher it goes, the farther it will crash, and the closer it happens to Y2K the worse _both_ will be."

We'll see.

-- a (a@a.a), June 08, 1999.

Infomagic quit after he was identified. Forget who he was - but he wrote exactly the same thing under Infomagic AFTER posting it to a Usenet forum under his real name. (Since I use only my real name and a real email address I just don't have to worry about that sort of thing.)

IFM 2 was pretty bad, but everyone I showed IFM 3 to asked questions like "where do you find these nuts?" and "does anyone really believe this crap?". The wife (a tech herself) made some comments that would certainly get this thread censored if I printed em'.

Good riddance IMHO.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), June 08, 1999.

Wrong again Paul. Infomagic last posted to c.s.y2k last week.

Infomagic

Do you ever get tired of being wrong Paul?

"If need be we can run the trains off peanut oil" - Paul Davis

"The chances of TEOTWAWKI are comparable to the odds of every electron in the universe suddenly converging into one point" - Paul Davis

-- a (a@a.a), June 08, 1999.

Just for you Paul...

Subject: Re: Breaking a sweat for Y2K?

Date: 1999/05/30

Author: Mail: Y2000 infomagic com

Posting History On 27 May 1999 12:30:56 GMT, kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net

(cory hamasaki) wrote: >What does the newsgroup think, are we about to enter the summer

>doldrums. I've noticed that my other-than-Y2K projects and

>distractions are increasing. Funny you should mention that. I'm not interested in doing Y2K projects any more, except perhaps externally auditing the work of Y2K teams. I've basically taken the summer off to write a bible study program and I'll shortly be publishing a fine art photograph, related to Y2K, which I'm sure you and the baron will love. I'm also doing research on a "different" engine for aircraft, something which might keep general aviation going for a while after the fall.

It's far too late to start on new Y2K projects, it's far too late even to make contingency plans. We've lost the battle _and_ the war and all we can do now is SET RECOVERY ON.

>I was able to solve it, not because I'm such a Hiller-esque "Big >Brain", but because years ago, I bashed away at IND$FILE doing ASCII >to EBCDIC transfers between OS/2 and OS/390 TSO and oh, had to use >Word 7 to write some documentation.

Nothing coincides like coincidence. Several years ago I wrote the IND$FILE client end (and the 3270 PC emulator) for the manufacturer of a 3270 protocol converter. Lots of fun.

But I'm having even more fun with Java and Linux and there, I think, is a greater future than with mainframes. Like you, I _know_ that most of the work is currently done by mainframes, but, when everything collapses, when there are no more viable large organizations, when they are no more mainframe size workloads . . .

But I think you know that already, my friend.

===================================== y 2 0 0 0 @ i n f o m a g i c . c o m =====================================

Disarm today! Dat arm tomorrow!

The Left is the enemy of all your Rights.

======================================================================

seems his views haven't shifted and neither have yours...

========================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), June 08, 1999.

opps... darn it. Hope you can make sense of it.

Sorry,

Mike ===================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), June 08, 1999.

I've always thought infomagic got a lot more attention than he deserved. It's not like he "wrote the book" on y2k or anything, he just one-upped everybody by saying y2k will be infinitely bad. His devolutionary spiral idea made some sense, but he didn't go very far towards showing why it would happen. He's just another expert opinion really, and he never argued his case at the length and detail necessary to establish such a far-out case.

-- number six (Iam_not_a_number@hotmail.com), June 08, 1999.

a, thanks for the InfoMagic link. He's alive & kicking; writing clear, lucid, informative; seems to have hope for a place for himself in the future. Noticed that more & more, the human spirit and optimism even "going InfoMagic" asserting itself! :-) Cheers to optimism peering thru the glass darkly! ;^) [well, it is summertime in some places  ;~]

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 08, 1999.

For the record, I give

* Infomagic/return to the Dark Ages a 1-in-100 chance

* Milne/return to 1850's a 1-in-5 (although some elements of his predictions, like cities burning, I give a 1-in-3, and some, like market crash, virtually 1-in-1

* Yourdon/10 year depression 1-in-2.

In my opinion, the best we can hope for is a shorter depression, and I discount entirely the scenarios proposed by the pollyannas.

-- a (a@a.a), June 08, 1999.

a --- I rate IFM at 1 in 50, otherwise I agree with you exactly.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), June 08, 1999.

Here is a TimeBomb 2000 link that has more info on Infomagic:

Who Is Infomagic

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), June 08, 1999.

I meant he quit putting out the INFOMAGIC stuff that was getting spread around in the weather reports - not that he dropped out of sight or something. (Sheesh - turn the paranoia knob down to moderate or something, will ya?) He did not seem too happy about his ID getting spread around - but I do see a post signed Infomagic once in a while.

No way to be sure if it is him or someone else, of course.

And unless you have rewritten the texts on diesel technology, they run just fine on almost any refined vegetable oil. Or crude oil, for that matter. Don't like facts? Tough.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), June 08, 1999.

Paul this crude oil thing tickles my funny bone everytime you bring it up. I can just see some truck driver pulling his shiny rig up to the fuel rationing point post-Y2K. They go to pump fuel into his tank:

"What the f--- is this BLACK s---!!!!!!!!"

"Oh, that's our new fuel, Hank. Now get out of the way!"

"Oh no, you're not puttin' that crap into my engine!!!"

Yeah, I can see that all right. ROFLMAO, Paul!!

"a", did he really say that about the electrons and TEOTWAWKI? That's another hoot!!! Good one! Talk about your religious faith in The System.

-- David Palm (djpalm64@yahoo.com), June 08, 1999.

a: Thanks for the Informagic links, great reading!

Paul Davis: Did you know that you are probably the only pollyanna on this forum that we know for a fact is NOT a troll -- because you are too friggin STUPID to be a troll!!!!!!

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), June 08, 1999.

King, if that was great reading, try Stephen King.

Better stories, and even more believable.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), June 08, 1999.

David: Yep, he said it. Posted it to GNIABFI though. There's not too many particle physicists over there :)

Paul really livens this place up. Ask him how his project to fill in the Atlantic Ocean is coming.

-- a (a@a.a), June 08, 1999.

Could he be a little more Pacific?

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), June 08, 1999.