From: Barbara Lamar (altamiratexas@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Jan 07 2001 - 10:39:21 MST
At 03:41 PM 01/07/2001 +0100, Eugene Leitl wrote:
>It's not the size, that I could live with. It's the incompatiblity,
>and bloat, and the instability which is simply unacceptable. But
>everybody's already knows that the web is gasping it's last breath,
>so whom am I telling this.
Incompatibility I think I understand, as that's the reason I briefly felt
like smashing my computer yesterday. I had a web page that worked with all
versions of IE & with older versions of Netscape but was having problems
with Netscape 6.0.
I wasn't sure what you meant by instability, so did a web search for
"internet instability" and, among other things, turned up the following
abstract of a talk to be given by Bill Davidow at a colloquium to be
held 21 Feb. 2001.
==============================================
http://buffy.eecs.berkeley.edu/Chair/00_01.archive/2001.0221.Davidow.html
Interconnections driven by the Internet are increasing at a very rapid
rate and are having dramatic effects on our society. Large tightly
interconnected complex systems whether they are physical, social, or
economic are inherently unstable. This suggests that many of our most
familiar institutions - government, monetary systems, tax systems etc. --
are not properly designed to deal with the challenges of the Information
Age. The reasons why this is true will be discussed and suggestions will be
made as to possible ways to deal with the challenges.
=============================================
It's a little disorienting to make the leap from Internet routing
instability to the instability of our civilization, but there it is. Among
other things.
Barbara
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