[ale] Hardening of the Brain

[Daniel Howard]

From: "Jeff Lightner" <jlightner at water.com>
To: ale at ale.org
 >I still say this internet thing will never really catch on...

OK, I have to tell my favorite story in this regard: When I was still a 
faculty researcher at Ga Tech we had a project with Sprint (at the time, 
1990, looking at deploying conventional cable systems) and Scientific 
Atlanta, looking for more applications on their advanced settop box of 
the time, the 8600x.  We did a distance learning application using 
questions sent via the vertical blanking interval and interactivity 
using the remote control and back channel to answer multiple choice 
questions.  In the final presentation, I had asked my students to 
suggest other applications they could launch on the settop box platform, 
and at the time, the Internet was Gopher, a text based application to 
find info on lots of subjects.  I proposed that we build a Gopher client 
in the settop box so cable customers could look up info on good hiking 
trails, restaurant reviews, etc.  The Sprint VP looked at me (and he was 
Indian, so read this with a suitable accent) and said "This Internet 
stuff is just some geeky thing you academics are interested in, no one 
is the real world will be interested in this."

I met that VP years later at a conference I made a presentation at on 
next generation cable modem technology, and I reminded him of his 
comments, and he said "Yes, I wish that was the first time I was wrong 
about a new technology."

I feel that same way now about thin client open source technology, BTW.

Daniel