Quite frankly, Breaking up Microsoft is Cruel and Unusual Punishment. It does not fit the crime. Rather, it is the crime. This is not in any way meant as a defense of Microsoft's business practices, which are common to all competetive markets and foreign to none. It is simply a statement of fact. No one forces consumers to buy Windows. Windows sells well because it satisfies what the consumer wants. It is a great product. Windows 2000 is a grand achievement and Microsoft should not be punished, it should be congratulated. Microsoft has done more for everyone on this planet than everyone else combined. It has stood atop the backs of giants and it has seen far beyond it's gaze.

If Historians remember Newton correctly he was pretty nasty to Leibniz. Yet his words are as true today as they were then and we have much to thank him for. In the same way, Bill Gates might not have been the greatest of friends to Steve Jobs, but we have much to thank him for as well.

It is unfortunate for those with color blindness that we do not live in a black and white world. It is a rich and vibrant pageant perhaps too intense for some. Not everyone sees the great steps forward Windows has brought the world. Not everyone truly fathoms the role Bill Gates has played in ushering in a New Golden Age. Nevertheless as profits are made and greater visions gained, it will be, for many, on the backs of Windows and Microsoft. We, here at Fresh Ink Virtual Studios, for one, are grateful. Thank you, Microsoft. You have helped these NERDS find their revenge.

©Copyright 02000 Fresh Ink

One thing we have known intuitively: You cannot profit at someone else's expense and endure. You may profit in the short term but the long term odds are very much against it. There is a sort of anthropological relativity here. The more you seek to profit at someone else's expense the more energy is required to continue doing so until the energy required exceeds any profit which could have been gained. It is thus inevitably self defeating.

On the other hand, you can profit from the profits of others and endure. Indeed, it is the only way.

For example, consider the Ficticious Floral Wholesale Company. Now, Floral Retailers have a very low success rate; most fail. As a Ficticious Floral Wholesaler, we would find that very disconcerting, to say the least, because, it is the rate by which the Wholesaler profits at the Retailer's expense that determines the overall longevity, or lack thereof, of the Wholesaler. The more your goals become focused on the bottom line, the more you narrow your focus to just quotas and expected earnings, the less you are concerned for the overall well being of your customers. The more you make your goal the bottom line, the more you need to literally eat your customers up just to stay alive.

But, when your customers prosper, the bottom line no longer seems as relevant. Suddenly, the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. Thus, the real concern is not the math, not the excel presentation or the profit margin, but the prosperity of the customer. The question is not, "How much can we sell them" but, "How rich can we make them."

In our example of the Ficticious Floral Wholesale Company, the question should never be, "How can we get just one more box of roses out the door" but, "How can we help our customers need to buy one more box of roses in the first place!"

As an example of a company that exemplifies what we are trying to say, that profit profits from profit, we might pick PowerAdz. Here is a company that is offering a service that is proving to dramatically increase it's customers profits! Through a product called ZWire, they have enabled their customers, currently over 500 newspapers nationwide, to reap enormous profits. How is this accomplished? Accessibility and Content. The newspapers provide the content,PowerAdz provides the accessiblility. What's more, PowerAdz gets it! They understand that as their customers prosper (while, we might add, making a sane and sensible migration from printed media to digital) so too will PowerAdz profit as well.

As perhaps Adam Smith should have said, the way to wealth is through innovation. And the way to innovate is to find a problem and fix it. ZWire is a solution to the needs and demands of it's customers. It provides a solution to the problems which had heretofor hindered their customers' further development. Furthermore, PowerAdz provides Rebrandable materials, a customer success program and a robust platform to succeed on. At every turn they have taken steps to ensure the profits of their customers. What better way to ensure their own?

©Copyright 02000 Fresh Ink

Throughout much of Man’s History, his best explanation for the existence of himself and his universe has been God. After all, it is hard not to look around in awe and not feel the tremendous urge to believe that there could be no other explanation. Nearly all of Man’s History is dominated by one form of creation myth or another. But there was never a viable alternative to the Divine Watchmaker Story, to the idea that the universe and man could be explained by means other than by an act of Divine Will, until Darwin and the theory of Natural Selection.

In fact, Darwin uprooted the whole structure upon which the edifice in a belief in God was built. He showed that it was not necessary to explain a mystery with a mystery when a perfectly logical and scientific explanation was available. What’s more, Darwin’s theory offered testable predictions whereas a belief in God by its very nature could not. Thus the world was compelled to accept, albeit begrudgingly, the theory of Natural Selection. As a result, we now have the study of Genetics and the Human Genome Project, Cloning and Genetic Engineering. But while there are many who might question whether any of this is a good thing, the point is that Darwin showed how a bottom-up approach could ‘create’ what had heretofore only been seriously considered in a top-down modality.

Time and again we have seen the top-down approach give way to stronger more robust bottom-up solutions. Consider the current revolution in the software industry as portrayed in the Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond. Here companies such as Microsoft are portrayed as the Cathedral, representing a top-down approach (it goes from God to me to you) in contrast to the Bazaar which represents the whole Linux/ Open Source movement. If Darwin is right then the historical impetus is with the Bazaar.

In another less tasteful sense this polemic has been further characterized in Jihad vs. McWorld, by Benjamin Barber, as a battle between the old and the new, the past and the future. Here, the Jihad represents tribalism or sectarianism, a breaking apart or splintering of the world into groups of ever smaller sizes, whereas McWorld represents the dark side of Man’s natural progression toward a global unity as an assimilation into a hive-like collective reminiscent of the Borg in Star Trek. But that need only be imaginative fiction, not reality. If we are allowed to mix our metaphors, then perhaps what is happening with Linux and the Open Source Movement is a better example of the tendency represented by McWorld towards increasing connectivity and integration. Perhaps the Open Source Movement is indicative of the general trend in the Universe toward increasing complexity or what has occasionally been called Negentropy. If that is indeed the case then McWorld is simply an attempt by the tribal-modality to discredit the growing trend toward globalization by choosing an unfavorable image. This is perhaps understandable in light of the perceived threat the theory of Natural Selection has had on the role of a Creator Diety as a viable explanation for the existence of the Universe.

As science continues to encroach upon the sacred territory once firmly under the sovereignty of God, it is increasingly perceived as a threat to that sovereignty. However, this does nothing to halt evolution's inexorable crawl toward higher states of order; it merely serves to make the transition more painful. In the end, the Cathedral will become relegated to the Museum of Antiquities while the Bazaar will continue to scaffold itself into higher and higher realms of novelty, paving the way for a robust and vibrant future.

"God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time--life and death--stuff like that. God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. Therefore I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out."
--Richard Feynman

"And the larger fear looms: We are in the process of building one vast global computer, which could easily become The Legacy System from Hell that holds civilization hostage—the system doesn’t really work; it can’t be fixed; no one understands it; no one is in charge of it; it can’t be lived without; and it gets worse every year. " -Stewart Brand

"Before we were created, we were obsolete. Corrolary: Innovation exceeds Development"
-Dug Fresh

The Real Y2K Bug was not a computer virus. The real Millennium Bug is and continues to be, a type A Strain of the Sydney Virus known as H3NT. This is the third year of Outbreak of this particular strain and it is nasty. Symptoms include a persistant and unproductive cough, headaches, and extreme fatigue.

Key moments during Y2K to key in on:

• 4:52 AM EST, Fri Dec. 31st,01999---Y2K Begins
• 7:00 PM EST Fri Dec. 31st, 01999---Russian-Chinese assault begins
• 7:35 PM EST Fri Dec. 31st, 01999---Earth is rendered uninhabitable for millions of years.

Fireworks Displays have been cancelled as have all plans for next week. Please remain indoors for the duration and have a nice day.

As parties are cancelled the world over (Jerusalem, Seattle, and now even Washington DC) we quietly prepare to usher in the Millennium at a private little party nestled somewhere in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Meanwhile, we stop to consider that, even as we toast the start of a new millennium, Wars Rage in a Third of the World's Nations and the Rain Forests are given less than fifteen years left to live. We don't know what will happen tomorrow night, but we do know that, if we are to survive globally as a species, then we must do more to ensure the future for our children than we have done. But while Y2K may come to an end, the Revenge of the NERDS shall live on, conspiring to build a better tomorrow, until the day when ignorance itself has been rendered extinct. Happy New Year Everyone! Happy New Millennium. The future is what we make it. Let us make it a good one. Love is the Law, Love under Will...

Keeping up on the news, I've notice a lot of talk of readiness and preparedness. The Military is Ready, the Banks are Prepared. This certainly is a strong indication that at least something is going to happen. The question is, what is going to happen? One small concern is a possible Nuclear War. Closer to home, NYC has been preparing for the worst with a $300 Million Dollar state-of-the-art Command Center complete with filtered air to thwart chemical and biological attacks. Meanwhile the FBI has been keeping its Eye on Would-Be Y2K Terrorists. It would almost seem we have more to worry about with all these crackpots running loose than with any computer bug. Unfortunately, a recently published Y2K Study Says that there are "serious doubts" that the 55,000 drinking water utilities and 16,000 wastewater facilities in the United States will be ready for Y2K. However, while all this may seem to be just the tip of the iceberg, at least some are seeing Y2K as a blessing in disguise. At the very least Y2K will be a chance to make friends with your neighbors...
December 12, 01999

Religious Fanacticism runs rampant here on Earth. You could say its something in the air. With the Third Millenium looming ever closer, you could say Y2K is the Golden Opportunity of Religious Fantatics all over the world to prove themselves right all along. And what better way than to assist in the fulfillment of prophecy?

The Bible contains the Book of Revelations which describes Armageddon, the final battle between Good and Evil. However, we live in confusing times. We are caught between frames so to speak. On the one hand, the Bible describes a Dualist Mindset yet, on the other hand, Science has had great success in its descriptions of the Universe in strictly Materialist terms. What this means is that for many of us we have an Enlarged Tendency to fail to distinguish between these two rival cosmologies. Good and Evil belong to the realm of Archetypes. They have little relevance to the relativities of Science. Furthermore, as science has led us into Materialism and away from Dualism, we often make the mistake of interpereting Armageddon in Materialistic terms and assume that it represents the World of Matter. However, the peole who are forced to work for a living are not so much concerned with Archetypes and the incongruites of our various Mental Maps as they are with paying the bills. Perhaps these people dream of an Afterlife, a refuge from the horrors of mortgage payments and the seventy hour work week but for now they can only be concerned with the Harsh Realities of Economics and, sometimes, Ecology (as when it can be ignored no longer). Quite simply, for the vast majority of people on this planet, affluence and Quality of Life have been denied them. What better way, then, to fulfill the dreams of an Afterlife than to Immanentize the Eschaton? What better way to put an end to this suffering and death once and for all? But all this is a confusion, a confusion of the contexts within which we frame our thoughts. If we were but able to distinguish between the Realm of Spirit and the Realm of Matter there might not have been a Y2K problem in the first place, or atleast not a Problem Bandwagon for all the Freakaholic Psychopaths and Religious and Political Hate Groups to jump on.

To some, it may seem spurious to claim a connection between Mankind's conceptual connundrums and Y2K. However, look at the crisis of Middle Management over the past thirty years. Lay-offs, a decrease in wages, and the constant pressure to compete in a global marketplace has led to the demise of the single income family, and to the wholesale disenfranchisement of the individual. It doesn't take a degree from Harvard to see that the consequences were inevitable. The Memes used by Religion to control the masses were at odds with the Memes used by Big Business to engineer Mankind into ravenous consumer beasts. On the one hand Religion says, suffer now and be rewarded later (in the Afterlife) whereas McWalmartsoft says buy now, pay later. Its a war between instant gratification and guilt. In such instances the tools used to enlighten become corrupted with the tools used to compete with the Jones'.

Think of Information as the Realm of Spirit. It does not have mass. It is merely a Configuration of Matter. Aristotle called this the Realm of Archetypes, Jung, the Realm of the Collective Unconscious. Here is where the final battle between Good and Evil takes place, where it must take place, the only place it can take place. But many confuse Dualism with Materialism and project this final battle outward, onto the Physical Universe. And this is where we run into trouble. Science provides us with the tools to wage our Inner Wars on the Outer World. It allows us to Genetically Engineer Viruses with which to battle against the forces of Evil; and what is the United States to many if not an Evil Empire? Does Iran like us? Does Iraq? Do they have the Technology to launch Biological War? Of course they do. We sold it to them.
October 30, 01999

A friend the other day said he heard a chilling Y2K report on a radio show called Pacifica Radio. I plugged Pacifica into my search engine and not only found their webpage but I found the show as well. I heartily recommend to those who have somehow managed to stumble by here to check it out. The entire audio file is available in the Democracy NOW! Archive for October 15. Its a speech by Helen Caldicott called Why to Care About Y2K. Basically there appears to be some minor concern over all the world's Nuclear Power Plants Melting Down if they lose electricity. She says, that it takes a Million Gallons of water per minute to keep these Reactors from Reaching Critical Mass. If they were to suddenly lose power, they could go critical in about two minutes. If we were to begin shutting them down now, it would take six months. Helen proposes the installation of solar powered generators as a backup against Y2K Power Failures. But what I don't fully get is, if we use Nuclear Power Plants for power how can they lose electricity? Don't they get power from themselves? It is my basic understanding that the issue is a bit more complex than that but I don't have any answers. However, if there is a threat of Y2K Related Power Failures causing a Meldown, then the problem is serious.

Hellen went on to say that FEMA has been stockpiling a form of Iodine that is used primarily in response to just such a crisis.While FEMA advises preparedness as Y2K's Golden Mean, there are some who have a few rather disparaging remarks to make about FEMA's clandestine roll as our nation's Secret Government; and while I cannot attest to the veracity of any of the statements made on any of the aforemntioned websites, I do feel there is suitable cause for alarm. A Nuclear Meltdown would certainly be reason enough for the Forces of FEMA to make themselves known, to suspend the constitution, declare Martial Law and otherwise engage in activities as nefarious as it seems some would suggest. What's more, while it may be specious and paranoid to assume some evil hand at work, it is clear that the mixed metaphor of winter's discontent is a fragile tapestry indeed.
October 20,01999

Is anybody out there disappointed with Y2k already? In every instance so far, at every nefarious Y2KDate, Y2k has failed to deliver nary a peep. What gives? Is it all hype? Or is the quiet a sure sign of a growing tidalwave of PANIC?

"One thing's for sure, you don't want to be the last one to panic!"
Doug H. Nutt

If nobody panics there is nothing to worry about. However, once people start to lose it, things are going to get ugly. There will be shortages. There will be bank runs. Unfortunately, many of us are not in a position to do anything about it.

This is where our local communities must step in. Outreach Programs and Church Services should have already begun stocking up on vital supplies that they should anticipate may be needed--- Fresh Water/Purification Tablets, Medical Supplies, Blankets, Toilet Paper, Beans and Rice.

In a Barter Economy Toilet Paper could fetch twice it's weight in Gold!

The important thing is to move slowly. Make small purchases, do not seem overly anxious. But do what you need to do to be ready. And then, do what you can to be ready for others.
September 22, 01999

July 25, 01999

It is hard to believe something so ignorant and shortsight as Y2KY could be anything other than a massive worldwide conspiracy. But the end of the world? No. Probably not. But it doesn't look like its going to be pretty. Last month a test of the local Sewage Plant in Van Nuys, California, for Y2K compliance went terribly wrong, spilling millions of gallons of raw sewage into a nearby neighborhood. If this is any indication, it would seem major disruption of local utilities and municipalities are almost assured. But is it the end? We should be so lucky.

Apathy and intentional neglect have made Y2K more of a mess than it had to be. Indeed, apathy and intentional neglect have made Y2K what it is today. That is, assuming you've ruled out Illuminazi involvement.But what about the NERDS? Might we not hope that, in the style of comic books and Hollywood, some secret cabal has secretly orchestrated the ultimate revenge against a cruel and unfeeling society? Or is that just adolescent fantasy?

Of course in the realm of sheer conjecture, anything goes. If the New World Order is the Holy Roman Empire in disguise, If the Holy Roman Empire is secretly rule by Extraterrestrials from the Twelfth Planet, and if Y2K not of their orchestration, then perhaps there is a Negative Entropy Reverse Distribution Society out there. It all depends on how it all turns out. If, after Y2K, its as if a dark weight has been lifted from mankind's collective soul, then we owe the NERDS a debt of gratitude. But if, Y2K turns out to be the prelude to mankind's worst nightmare, then it was obviously the work of the Evil Empire. Here's hoping that Y2K turns out to be the Revenge of the NERDS...
July 25,01999

Many gloomy Y2k-dire dates have come and gone with nary a peep from the Ugly Head of Doom. Have we nothing to fear but fear itself? Or will Y2K be dwarfed by even bigger concerns?

What happened to the "New Fiscal Year" Gloomers who forecasted a prelude to woe on April 1st of this year? Have we the same lackluster frenzy to look forward to come this September (9/9/99)? Or are the Killer Comets going to get us first?

Obviously the world abounds with Prophets of Doom, the snake oil salemens of would-be Nihilists for the Last Generation. But if they really bought what they sold, they'd realize there isn't any future in it. Its just a misplaced fantasy. Instead of making any real effort, of planting a garden, or cleaning up a toxic waste-site, these people default to apathy instead. After all, if the Rapture is scheduled for next tuesday, you wouldn't necessarily expect to have plans on wednesday.

It should be apparent that Nihilism is a sad pathetic self-fulfilling prophecy at odds with any meaningful human existence. Nothing has ever been gained by giving up or giving in. Only by visualizing a future can we be expected to be able to build one.

"How can we invest in a future we know is structurally incapable of keeping faith with its past? The digital industries must shift from being the main source of society’s ever-shortening attention span to becoming a reliable guarantor of long-term perspective. We’ll know that shift has happened when programmers begin to anticipate the Year 10,000 Problem, and assign five digits instead of four to year dates. “01998” they’ll write, at first frivolously, then seriously."
-Stewart Brand

So what ever happens come January 1st,2000, we must be prepared to do our best come what may. If Y2KY is a New World Conspiracy there's not much we can do about it now anyway. The best thing to do is to prepare like you are going on a camping trip for a very long time...
April 23,01999

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