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How many of you are Y2k "Newbies?"

Confused? Kind of freaked out? When did you arrive here. etc.?

RSVP! Right here on this thread!

-- hanging (with@the.oldtimers), November 21, 1999

Answers

Maybe we need a 3rd thread. I am fairly new to this forum, but GI'd in the summer of 1998, thanks to Ed's book. After that revelation, I found scarey Gary, Cory Hamasaki's WRPs, Westergaard, Hyatt pages, Sanger's review, et al, but stayed away from discussion forums mostly due to time constraints. I also started exercising the "buy one, get one free" options at Safeway and sales at hardware and camping stores.

After I bailed from Silicon Valley and my workaholic life, I have had more time to look around.

Not sure if I will ever be finished prepping (a woman can never be too rich, too thin, or have enough toilet paper!), but I am grateful to the sane ones on these two forums and the sysops for all that I have learned. I really appreciate the contributions and the work that it takes to keep some semblance of order. Its easy for me to avoid an obvious polly come on--I avoid clicking on the thread or just scroll thru quickly. I will read Decker, Flint or Hoffmeister even if I usually do not agree with them.

I look for threads by the sysops, Gecko, Old Git, Ed, Big Dog, R.C., the Gold bugs, Homer, Uncle Bob, etc. KOS makes me laugh :) and boy have I read one hell of a lot about petroleum.

I feel safer knowing that I have become a grown up in terms of self responsibility (given that I live close to the Loma Prieta fault that is a good thing), and I have turned the corner in my desire to live my life more deliberately.

Retiring and living a more deliberate life means more than just stocking up on toilet paper. I am now having a fine time aggravating a company that is seeking permission to bury a fiber optic cable in the Monterey Bay sanctuary on their way up the coast. I know a lot about cabling, implementation processes, SOWs and performance bonds and it is loads of fun to make these folks nuts and delay or derail their plan. A great reminder that nothing learned in life is ever wasted....

One of the positives about taking a hard look at where the planet is at with technology is that I see a renewed interest in self-reliance and sustainability, building community, and treading more lightly on this earth.

I was pretty surprised by the Mercury News article about Weight Watchers' decision to throw out the computers and go back to manual processes. That may be throwing out the baby with the bath water, but just maybe we will learn something from these next few years of hassles and chaos. Sorry, I am link impaired.

I would not begin to know how to start over creating a hardware/software/networking/chip architecture that is sustainable, virus proof, and user friendly. Not smart enough. I do know the present level of technological chaos and its accompanying nutso work culture may well collapse due to its own weight and the impact it has on people's lives and the environment.

We will be living in interesting times... Thanks all.

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), November 21, 1999.


Welcome! You sound like someone who is very capable. Silly question: What is so horrible about a buried fiber optics cable?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 21, 1999.

What is so horrible about it is that they want to open up the Monterey Bay sanctuary for cable access. They cannot guarantee that 93% of the cable will be buried a minimum of one meter. Additionally there are some interesting safety hazards just laying the stuff. Not only does this open up Pandora's box, so to speak, but there are a lot of bottom feeder fish who could get tangled up in cable. They are using festooning design architecture with photonics, so the cable is inert, but...

Believe me, I am a fan of bandwidth and the technogeek part of me supports alternative access beyond terrestrial cable, but not thru the marine sanctuaries. There are only 12 of them in the U.S. and this cable project passes through 3.

-- nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), November 21, 1999.


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